Education in Russian was unpopular among ethnic Azeris until 1887, when Habib bey Mahmudbeyov and Sultan Majid Ganizadeh founded the first Russian-Azeri school in Baku.
A secular school with instruction in both Russian and Azeri, its programs were designed to be consistent with cultural values and traditions of the Muslim population.
Its direct result by the mid-twentieth century was the formation of a supra-ethnic urban Baku subculture, uniting people of Russian, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Jewish, and other origins and whose special features were being cosmopolitan and Russian-speaking.
Ismayil bey Gutgashynly and Yusif Vazir Chamanzaminli published original works in Russian in the years before the October Revolution.
Its outstanding representatives are Imran Gasimov, Hasan Seyidbayli, Magsud and Rustam Ibragimbekovs, Natig Rasulzadeh, Alla Akhundova and Chingiz Abdullayev among others.
Since the second half of the nineteenth century, Russian folk and pop songs have appeared in repertoires of Bulbuljan, Muslim Magomayev, Rashid Behbudov Polad Bülbüloğlu, Zeynab Khanlarova, Flora Karimova, the Qaya group and many others.
Even after independence from the Soviet Union Azerbaijani singers such as Brilliant Dadashova and Aygun Kazimova have continued to write and perform songs in Russian.
[18] In 2008, the government banned foreign language broadcasts on Azerbaijani television and radio channels, except for a daily newscast in Russian.
At the phonetic level, this influence can be seen specifically in the initial lengthening of vowels,[29] a sharp rise in intonation at the end of a question,[30] and the use of the voiced palato-alveolar affricate.