UNESCO to mark 200th anniversary of German resettlement in Azerbaijan

Next year Azerbaijan will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the first settlement of Germans in Azerbaijan and this date will be marked by UNESCO.

Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov made the remark at the joint press conference with OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as part of his visit to Baku on Thursday.

This year Azerbaijan submitted the proposals to UNESCO.

"German settlers in Azerbaijan” project has been prepared,” the minister said, adding that the first the Germans was for the first time settled in the country’s cities of Tovuz, Astara and Ganja in 1817.

Today they live in some regions of the country, Mammadyarov emphasized. “There is a proposal on the reconstruction of Siemens museum in Gadabay. In addition, we have proposed to restore Germans-owned house-museum in Goygol,” he said.

Azerbaijan, which is located between the West and East, became the home of representatives of many different nationalities at certain times throughout history. This ethnic diversity, which is still retained today, and the peaceful coexistence members of different nationalities, cultures, and confessions show the tolerance and respect the Azerbaijanis have for these people.

Germans represent the European culture and the German page of Azerbaijan’s history is one of the most interesting ones.

Unstable situation in Germany in the 18th-19th centuries forced some Germans to leave their homelands. Landless German peasants left their native German principality of Wurttemberg at the beginning of the 19th century, and found shelter many thousands of kilometers away in Azerbaijan, which was then part of the Russian empire.

A number of colonies were created across the country. In early 19th-20th centuries, three of eight German colonies, Eigenfeld, Annenfeld and Georgsfeld, were located in Shamkir.

These colonies were a shelter for German colonists, who created a little Germany here with cozy houses built in German style and tidy streets, with pear and plane trees along them.

But, the World War II destroyed the peaceful life of the colony. Germans were exiled from their second home by Josef Stalin. In October 1941, more than 20,000 German colonists were living in Azerbaijan, and almost all of them were deported to Siberia.