Baku’s Inner City residents not to be resettled: Cabinet of Ministers official

Day.Az: For which services Inner City was recently removed from the "black list" of UNESCO?

Mikail Jabbarov: To answer this question, one needs to remember what is a "black list", and when the Inner city was included there.

World Heritage List is compiled by the World Heritage Committee, UNESCO, and we are proud of the fact that Inner City became the first facility in Azerbaijan, which was included on the list in 2000. Because recognition of Inner City a world heritage site underlined its historical and cultural importance, not only for the Azerbaijani people, but also for the world's cultural heritage.

In 2003, Inner City was recorded in the so-called "black list" of the World Heritage Committee. The official name of this list  is List of World’s Endangered Heritage Sites. There were several reasons. First is the impact of the earthquake of 2000, the second is the uncontrolled building, which caused irreparable damage and illegal demolition of a certain number of monuments of historical value.

Thirdly, thi is a lack of a unified system of governance in the Inner City and lack of a concept of sustainable development. According to the World Heritage Committee, these reasons were sufficient grounds to declare threat for unique value of the monument. We must remember that the Inner City entered the list on the following criteria - a unique architectural ensemble.

In parallel with the creation of management all necessary measures were taken to stop all illegal construction in the old city. Destruction of buildings of historical value was stopped. A master plan for preservation was developed and a buffer zone around the Inner City was defined.

We presented all the steps taken to experts who highly appreciated the work Azerbaijan carried out in this field. The fact that the mission of UNESCO experts who visited the Inner City recommended to study experience of management of the Inner City as an example for the study of other sites on the World Heritage List shows that Azerbaijan deserved exclusion of the Inner City from the “black list.”  

The decision to remove the Inner City from the “black list” was made on June 25, 2009 during the annual session of the Committee on World Heritage Sites held in the Spanish city of Seville. We had an opportunity to inform participants about the  works that had been implemented and to show that any further threat to the preservation of the unique value of Inner city does not exist.

Q: Reports say Italians have developed a special master plan for the Inner City.

A: Master Plan is a very important document that defines the concept of urban development in the Inner City. This document can be called a master plan for the preservation and development of the old city. The work was very labor-intensive and carried out over several years by an international team of experts, which also included Azerbaijani specialists and architects.

Q: Are there plans to resettle the Inner City residents?

A: This question touches upon several important aspects. Uniqueness and value of the Inner City lies in the fact that it is a living city already for thousands of years. But the very value creates all sorts of difficulties for us in terms of its protection. It's no secret that to guard the museum is much easier than to protect the monuments in a fully functioning city with people who live here and consider themselves an integral part of the Inner City.

/Day.Az/