Late in the evening of May 9th, the day before the birth of former Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev, graffiti found its way onto a statue dedicated to the same man, in a park in Baku, Meydan TV reports.
The inscription read: “Happy Slave Day!”
The unknown author took the Azerbaijani phrase, “Gül bayramınız mübarək!”, changed the first two letters of the first word and thereby completely changed the meaning of the phrase from, “Happy Flower Day!” to “Happy Slave Day!”
Flower Day is celebrated every year in Baku and other large regional Azerbaijani cities on the 10th of May to coincide with the birthday of the former president of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev.
Every year in preparation for the holiday, the government spends tens of millions of dollars on flowers from Holland, Italy, France, Turkey, China and other countries. This has elicited criticism and contempt from civil society.
