An unusual event has occurred; the prime minister’s numerous restaurants, hotels, and other immovable properties have been exposed. Currently, the Cabinet of Ministers must resolve the issue of transferring ownership of these properties to another person’s name within three months.
Just kidding, of course. About the second sentence. The first sentence is true, and after all, why do we need a prime minister who doesn’t have a lot of property? Armenia is a poor and desperate country where the prime minister’s daily eating of pastries and peeled potatoes on the bus is showcased. Mashallah, our prime ministers have never let our great nation go hungry; even former prime ministers like teacher Artur would eat fresh cucumber salad in the dead of winter.
We ourselves may starve, as long as state employees live well. Azerbaijan is the only country in the world where its employees are more state than the state itself.
As for the second sentence, all properties are protected by law here; no one’s house or property is the public’s concern. Like the aphorism said in Turkey: “Justice is the foundation of property.” We applaud our esteemed prime minister for acquiring 5-10 restaurants as a reward for his long and intense struggle against the coronavirus pandemic.
The only thing I didn’t like was the un-national names given to some establishments, because our esteemed prime minister has repeatedly issued orders, decrees, decisions, and resolutions, albums and vignettes, business cards and invitations, menus and requests, prayers and spells to protect the mother tongue. But apparently, that was not enough. Look for yourselves, one of the prime minister’s restaurants is called “Beer Hall,” and a hotel is named “Sapphire.”
Was it impossible to name the restaurant “Pivə zalı” in our mother tongue? What kind of disrespectful attitude is this towards our native language?! Has our prime minister ever seen an establishment named “Pivəxana” or “Pivə evi” during his foreign trips, for example, in England? That’s impossible, because we never give that name ourselves—what need do the English have for it?
The “Sapphire” matter is quite complicated. It is the English name of the blue mineral called sapfir in our language. I wonder if fewer people would visit if the hotel were named “Sapfir,” but when called “Sapphire” (no offense, it even sounds like Armenian), would it be crowded with customers and guests? Surely, such statistics don’t exist. In fact, in my opinion, it would sound more beautiful if the hotel were named “Blue Bead,” which would add mystery to the hotel, and people would constantly worry wondering who has the blue bead. For those who don’t know, here is an ancient parable: a man had two wives, and the wives got tired of asking him which one he loved more. The wise man found a solution: he gave each wife a blue bead and told them to keep it secret; it’s their secret and so on. Then, when the wives again asked which one was favored, the man said: “I love whoever has the blue bead more.”
Anyway, let’s not stray from the topic—we are tallying the prime minister’s properties for now; we’ll sort out the beads later. The names of the other shops were good, for example, words like mangal and narsharab were chosen. By the way, now I remember, once our prime minister spoke Russian in Iran, and then journalists made a fuss, saying that in fact he doesn’t know our mother tongue at all. If that is true, we should be thankful for the names mangal and narsharab.
Such topics arise often. Recently, certain organizations gathered and discussed giving our children national, mother tongue names, saying that children should not be named Alisa, Melisa, or even Ali and Isa, which belong to oppositionists. (I wrote Ali and Isa as a joke; no decision has been made yet, but if it does happen, we are ready to applaud.) The funniest thing was that the organizer of the event’s own surname was “Məmmədova.” Well, if you don’t like Melisa, what about “ova”? Does it mean “person from Məmməd’s plain”?
The title was chosen alluding to that blue bead story. In our country, a government official cannot engage in business; his “wife” must be devoted in one direction. Either he must choose public service or business. Yet he keeps both. So, is anyone complaining about this? No. The bead isn’t ours, so what business do we have with it?