About Azerbaijan
The Republic of Azerbaijan is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia (Republic of Dagestan) to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia and Turkey to the west, and Iran to the south. Baku is the capital and largest city.
The modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which it had been a part of since 1920.
The name Azerbaijan was first adopted for the area of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan by the government of Musavat in 1918,after the collapse of the Russian Empire, when the independent Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was established. Until then, the designation had been used exclusively to identify the adjacent region of contemporary northwestern Iran, while the area of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was formerly referred to as Arran and Shirvan. During the Soviet rule, the country was also spelled in Latin from the Russian transliteration as Azerbaydzhan (Russian: Азербайджа́н). The country's name was also spelled in Cyrillic script from 1940 to 1991 as Азәрбајҹан.
Today, Azerbaijan is a unitary semi-presidential republic.It is one of six independent Turkic states and an active member of the Organization of Turkic States and the TÜRKSOY community. Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 182 countries and holds membership in 38 international organizations,including the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Non-Aligned Movement, the OSCE, and the NATO PfP program. It is one of the founding members of GUAM, the CIS,and the OPCW. Azerbaijan is also an observer state of the WTO.
The postage stamps of Azerbaijan closely follow the political history of the country, from its incorporation to the Russian Empire in 1806 to its briefly obtained independence in 1918, which it lost to the Soviet Union in 1920 and re-acquired it in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union.
On 19 November 1990, the ASSR was renamed the Republic of Azerbaijan. It became an independent country on 18 August 1991 and its first stamp was issued on 26 March 1992 to mark its independence. Unlike most other ex-Soviet republics, Azerbaijan did not overprint Soviet stamps to meet their postal needs after independence. The national postal service Azərpoçt was founded in 1992, which was restructured in 1999 and which became the national postal operator in 2004. The national postage stamp company Azermarka began functioning in 1992 and is responsible for the production and sale of all Azerbaijani postage stamps. On 1 April 1993, Azerbaijan became a member of the Universal Postal Union. A variety of definitive and commemorative stamps have been produced depicting topical and local subjects. First day covers and postal stationery have also been issued. The first stamps depicting people were issued in 1993. The first person to be featured on a postage stamp after the dissolution of the Soviet Union was Heydar Aliyev, the third President of Azerbaijan. The first stamps to be issued in the new Azerbaijani currency, the manat, that was introduced to replace the Soviet rouble used for the previous issues since independence, appeared in October 1992, after the introduction of the new currency on 15 August 1992.
