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Azerbaijan: Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center On Fire

Categories: Central Asia & Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Arts & Culture, Breaking News, Citizen Media, Economics & Business

Reports have come in that the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center [1] in Baku, Azerbaijan, is on fire. The building, named after the oil-rich republics's former president and father of its current head of state, Ilham Aliyev, was opened in May 2012 and was designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. RFE/RL puts the cost of the center [2] at $250 million.

With billions of petro-dollars fueling a construction boom on an unprecedented scale in Azerbaijan, the modern building was featured by Extreme Engineering [3], a Discovery Channel Documentary series. News spread via online media sites, Twitter and Facebook. Helicopters are reportedly involved in attempts to extinguish the fire.

@LvIsmylv [4]: Heyder Aliyev center yanır pic.twitter.com/pNOEAAQ6 [5]

Heydar Aliyev Center is burning

@sakitoglu [6]: Heydar Aliyev Center is burning! #Baku #Azerbaijan pic.twitter.com/ZoKag7Kd [7]

[5]

Video was also uploaded to YouTube:

@nhacizade [8]: Bakü'de yanan (http://bit.ly/NmuGHS) HA Kültür Merkezi inanılmaz güzel bir binaydı, üç hafta önce çektiğim hali: http://twitpic.com/a9m35m [9]

The burning HA Cultural Center in Baku was an incredibly beautiful building. Here's a photo I took of it 3 weeks ago.

[9]