Ali Bayramov Club

[1] The Ali Bayramov Women's Club, active in Baku and the surrounding regions, was opened in 1920 under the direction of the People's Commissariat for Education.

[2] The Club was originally founded as a literacy and sewing circle by Jeyran Bayramova with the aim of enlightening Azeri women.

The Club was named after her brother-in-law whom she married after her sister's death, Ali Bayramov, who had encouraged her educational pursuits when her parents had not.

Ali Bayramov, a leading Azeri Bolshevik, encouraged his wife to be active in the communist women's movement.

[1] There were a range of cultural, sports, and leisure activities, including plays and musical events performed by troupes of women, film screenings, game rooms (chess, backgammon, billiards), and dance classes.

Some of the women excitedly thought: “we came to the club, started a sewing workshop, removed our veils, abolished illiteracy, and now what?

When German Marxist theorist and women's rights activist, Clara Zetkin, visited the Ali Bayramov club in 1924, she was greatly impressed, calling it a hub of gathering revolutionary forces.

The founders faced challenges early on attracting women with organizational skills, especially given that most required permission from their husbands to participate and the male communist cadres’ ambivalence towards the project.