Story 1 It happened in 1983, during my sophomore year of college. Rumors suddenly spread throughout Baku that moving silhouettes of Shi’I saints (imams) were seen on Sovetski street. The Soviet Union was an atheist state and triumph over the ”opiate of people” was declared long ago. Because of that, it was really unique to witness thousands of “atheists” rushing to see the saints who were supposedly defeated by the ruling communist ideology . The event was very unorthodox and lasted only few days. What happened that day remains a mystery, primarily due to the fact that former KGB archives are still unavailable to the public. However, many popular versions (or even rumors) exist about this story. Some people say that it was a KGB designed operation to check the influence of Iranian Shia propaganda on Azerbaijani Muslims after the Islamic revolution in 1979. Others believe that it was an intrusion of the imperialist West. I remember some of my classmates telling stories about cutting edge remote video devices invented by the Japanese and operated by spies to incite a turmoil in a major Soviet city. Some interesting observations can be remembered as well . During that brief period most unusual, for example, was the fact that Soviet TV suddenly began nonstop broadcasting of Hollywood films that were rarely seen if at all seen on soviet television. Apparently it was done to keep people indoor and to prevent possible expansion of this unexpected “pilgrimage” of Bakuvians to the Sovetski street. It should be noted that in the 1920-s and 1930-s and even during the WW2, similar “resurrections” of saints were happening as well .
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 16:41:07 +0000
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