Eldar, although having spent a lifetime in scientific and research work, has lived a life as rich as ten lives—a literary halo embroidered with spiritual beauty.
This is Eldar Akhadov, born in 1960 in Baku, Azerbaijan. It was a time when the Soviet Union included several republics and ethnicities within its borders. Thus, from a very young age, Eldar, eager for knowledge and wisdom, adored poetry, the beautiful songs of his homeland, and loved the endless sky and open spaces. He would listen to the chirping of birds and imitate them.
But alongside the sky, Eldar also fell in love with the earth and the underground, its depths, its treasures, and its beauty. In 1983, he graduated as a mining engineer from Leningrad University (now Saint Petersburg). After completing his studies with excellent results, he worked all over—across the North and South Caucasus, in Siberia, and in the far north of Russia.
His homeland nurtured in him a love for beautiful folk songs, the legends and myths of Azerbaijan. The stunning traditional costumes, embroidered with filigree and golden threads, full of colors and flowers, created for Eldar the image of a rainbow circling the spiritual beauty of the bright-eyed girls of Baku.
Saint Petersburg raised and refined him with its grandeur and civilization. There, he enjoyed the elegant balls of the Russian elite, especially the waltz. In Saint Petersburg, he admired the White Nights and wrote poetry.
Eldar worked in the Caucasus—a place where fields touch the clouds and mountains seem like an ancient tale written by nature itself. There, the old shepherds’ paths cross, where the wind’s whisper mixes with the quiet sounds of nature, where meadows of fresh grass and wildflowers bloom, where in summer the shepherds raise their huts, where ancient legends are passed down from generation to generation—this pastoral life shaped Eldar’s soul.
When he worked in Siberia, Eldar came to know the endless white silence, where snow is not just a season but a way of life. The dense Siberian forests, the taiga, the frozen rivers—where man feels small before the majesty of land and weather—gave Eldar the opportunity to understand wild nature and share it lovingly through his writings.
I mention these things because in the 102 books Eldar Akhadov has written—in poetry, prose, and studies—his childhood, student youth, and work have all served as inspiration and muse for him. Although his writings are in seven languages, they have been translated and published in 45 countries around the world.
Eldar is an honorary member of the writers’ unions of several sovereign states. He is an honorary member of the Union of Writers of Azerbaijan and an academic of the International Academy of Literature, Art, Culture, and Social Sciences (Uzbekistan). He is also the head of the Coordinating Council of the World Organization of Writers (WOW). Poets Mordechai Geldman (Israel) and Richard Berengarten (Cambridge, UK) compare his work to that of William Blake.
In 2025, his book Baku – Zurbagan was published simultaneously by four publishers in three countries—Russia, India, and Turkey.
I met Eldar in Moscow at the second Congress of the World Organization of Writers (WOW). A man with a dignified presence but a great and warm heart—this is Eldar.
Reading Eldar’s poetry, last year I selected one of his poems titled “A Man Who Looked Like Me.” I translated the poem into Albanian and it was published in issue No. 279/2024 of the prestigious magazine Obeliks, a copy of which I gifted to Eldar in Moscow.
Those who don’t know Eldar and see him from afar might think he is a “cold” man, as if carrying the ice of Siberia on his back—but when you speak with him, you’ll see in his eyes the colorful flowers of Baku dancing, and feel that his heart and soul are as vast as the Russian steppes.
This is Eldar Akhadov.
Driven by my passion for lyrical poetry, I am publishing one of Eldar’s poems titled “Фортепьянское” (Pianistic) along with a literary analysis of the original Russian version.
Thank you, dear friend Eldar Akhadov, for the joy you bring us with the beauty of your verses.
Delo Isufi, Albania
