Heydar Aliyev's cult of personality

[7] Aliyev has long been accused of violating human rights and forming an autocratic system in Azerbaijan, with many critics even characterizing the regime as totalitarian.

According to Azeri analyst Zafar Guliyev, the 2003 appointment of Ilham Aliyev as his father's successor instigated a process of asserting the personality cult of his predecessor and rewriting recent Azerbaijani history.

[11] In his 2003 book The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia, German journalist Lutz Kleveman described the situation: In his eight years of rule, the autocrat has orchestrated a true cult of personality.

[15]Julie Hill described the cult in her 2005 book, The Silk Road revisited: markets, merchants and minarets, as follows: Between a supermarket and a hardware store on a busy street close to the center of the town [Baku] is a poster that displays the portraits of Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijani later president and, in the words of his son Ilham Aliyev, the current president, the "founder of an independent Azeri state".

[17] In 2001, when journalists from CIS countries asked Heydar Aliyev about his cult of personality, he responded: The people love me, I can't do anything with that.

He resisted, but I told him "put a statue after I die..."[18]Every city and town in Azerbaijan has a street named after Heydar Aliyev,[19] including one of the central avenues of the capital Baku.

[19] Other places named after him include: On 14 June 2005, a commemorative plaque was opened in Saint Petersburg, Russia on 6 Gorokhovaya Street, near the house where Aliyev lived from 1949 to 1950.

Traditionally, it is held in Heydar Aliyev Park, in front of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, where unique flowers from around the world are gathered.

Black Label (Qara nişanə) was directed by Vagif Mustafayev with Polish actor Tadeusz Huk (pl) playing Aliyev's role.

[29] Later statues were erected in Comrat, Gagauzia, Moldova (2007),[88][89] Tbilisi (2007)[90] Qalyub, a suburb of Cairo (2008)[91] Belgrade's Tašmajdan Park (2011)[92] and Mexico City (2012).