Carpet contest winners announced

By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

The winners of the carpet design contest have been announced in Baku.

Over 20 young talents took part in the competition co-organized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the Culture Ministry and the Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum to mark the 880th anniversary of the great Azerbaijani poet and thinker Nizami Ganjavi.

The international jury selected two winners out of 43 participants: the author of the sketch "Thoughts" - Azerbaijani artist Eldar Ibadullaev, and the author of the sketch "Intikalun" (transition in Arabic) - textile designer from Russia Olga Lyaschenko.

The museum's Traditional Technologies Department will weave the carpets according to the sketches of the winners. Cash prizes will bealso awarded to the winners. Since one of the winners of the competition is a foreign citizen, his arrival to participate in the carpet-cutting ceremony and hotel accommodation will be paid for by the organizers.

Nizami Ganjavi started his creative activity with lyrical poems- gasidas, gazals and rubais. He dedicated his whole life to lyrical poems, and different philosophical problems.

The works of Azerbaijani poet and thinker have been translated into many languages.

The rare manuscript copies of his works are kept and preserved in world-famous libraries, museums and literary foundations in  Moscow, St. Petersburg, Baku, Tashkent, Tabriz, Tehran, Cairo, Istanbul, Delhi, London, Paris and others.

In Khamsa (Quintet), the poet revealed the living pages of history.

The attack of the Russians on Barda city, a fairy tale of the Russian Princess, the beautiful Shirin amazons, battles, described in various poems of Nizami - all this is historically and geographically related to medieval Azerbaijan and the Caucasus.

Nizami Ganjavi passed away in 1209 in his native city of Ganja. A grandiose tomb was raised over his grave.