“Every city has its own memory.  It lives on in the city’s streets.. in its old and new buildings... and in the hearts and minds of the people who love the city”, writes the General Editor of “Baku” magazine, Leyla Aliyeva in her monthly Editorial column in the latest edition.

“The city holds everything in its memory – the story of our first love, the heart-throb of our first date, the stomping of kids’ feet on the boulevards as they smell the sea’s salt tang, the feelings of those astounding master masons who first built the Maiden Tower...  you could never hope to number it all?”

It’s a memory as deep as an ocean, into which rivers and stream of personal memories have emptied. It unites us with those citizens of Baku who have already departed this world, and with those whose happy fate is to live here yet.

It’s a memory like a book, whose pages are written by everyone living here now. Any attempt to say the last word on Baku is inevitably an attempt to grasp the ungraspable. Yet even so, it’s fascination to savour these details.

Baku’s memory safeguards reminiscences of how this city – like a true Oriental beauty – always found itself at the centre of attention, of love, and adoration. The street which once was known as “A Million For A Smile” - and  earned the ire of the powers that be in the process – is a powerful reminder that even in the Soviet era Baku was a city that made people think about its beauty.

“For me personally Alish Lemberansky – the legendary Mayor of Baku, who created this street – will always remain an elusive figure. How did the boss of a large oil refinery come to possess the taste, architectural flair and limitless energy that helped him to solve what seemed to be insoluble problems? The only thing I can suggest is that when someone is in love – then anything is possible. Even the impossible is possible. Love is what can help us fathom and experience what a hundred years of lessons can never teach us.  And everyone knew that Alish Lemberansky was in love with Baku. His passionate feeling for the city was so intense that it even infected public officials who were unschooled in display their emotions publicly.

The world-famous art expert and collector Nicholas Ilyin has recently published a fascinating book entitled Memories Of Baku  - describing how he first came to our city, and went on to return many times.  And of course, as it inevitably happens with anyone who comes to Baku – he fell in love with the city. And this book of his, I would say, is a wonderful admission of his love for Baku”, says Leyla Aliyeva.

The latest issue of “Baku” magazine gives its readers details of the top cultural events going on in Azerbaijan’s capital this month. The Events section has details of a personal exhibition by People’s Artist Tair Salakhov, which will be opening in the Heydar Aliyev Centre.  There’s also news about the “Zavod” (“Factory”) project, the “Yarat!” contemporary arts venue, a new exhibtion by young Swiss artist Olympia Scarry, and a photo exhibtion by Resa Degati entitled “Azerbaijan, the centre of tolerance” which was first seen at the UN headquarters in New York. Sports fans will find plenty of interest in the magazine too – including coverage of the Azerbaijan-Russia football game, and the first of the “Arena Polo” events, that’s been hailed as one of the city’s brightest sporting fixtures.

In the Crossroads section, the author of a new play called “Children & Animals Take The Streets”, by the British theatre group “!927”, tells us about the events, happenings, influences, and heroes without whom his performances could never have happened.

In May this year the Maly Theatre from Russia undertook a sell-out tour to Azerbaijan. Under the title “The Season Begins”, the Artistic Director of the Maly Theatre – People’s Artist Of The USSR, Yuri Solomin – gives an interview about the event.

Nicholas Ilyin is a skilled art expert, connoisseur and collector – the Vice-President of international corporation GCAM. He gave an interview to Baku magazine, in which he wrote that “there are mythical cities, about which we’ve all heard. There are even well-worn terms such as “the Pearl of the Caspian”, and “the Land of Fire”.  Yet even so, many people in the West still don’t know the reasons this city is so famed, or so remarkable”.

“The first Mayor in the USSR” is the title of an article about Baku’s legendary mayor Alish Lemberansky.  “Baku was his reason for living, and he remains in people’s minds as a founder and builder” runs the article which appears in the “Baku Citizens” section of Baku Magazine.

Julii Gusman – People’s Artist of Azerbaijan and State-Decorated Artistic Figure – writes a heartfelt column in the magazine about his great love for Baku and its people, titled “Back To The Future”. “For me, the sense of Baku is a feeling of my roots, in the way that my native city energises me, gives me wings – when you feel a festive brightness in your very soul. Those of us from Baku who have – for numerous reasons – been scattered all over the globe, don’t live in the past. We know everything that’s going on in Azerbaijan – and we sense the pulse of our homeland’s life, in the same way we know our own heartbeat.”

The latest issue of Baku Magazine has an article titled “Seven Notes, And The Whole of Life” about the House Museums of famous Azerbaijanian composers. There’s also a piece about Shakhdag, the first ski resort in Azerbaijan – while in the “Celebrity News” section there’s a write-up of a personal exhibition by Aida Makhmudova in the  Kiçik Qala exhibition hall.