On the 3^rd of December a round table dedicated to the intangible cultural heritage of Azerbaijan was held at the International Mugham Center, organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The event was dedicated to the declaration of October 17 as the International Day for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage by the decision of the 42^nd General Conference of UNESCO.

The roundtable was attended by representatives of relevant government agencies, experts in the field and scientists. In the first part of the event, which consisted of two sections, speeches were heard on the topic “A Rooted View of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Azerbaijan: Our Regions as the Cradle of Our Traditions”.

Hikmat Guliyev, Director of the Institute of Folklore of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Sciences in Philology, also participated in the event and contributed to the discussions. He put forward a number of proposals for the protection and study of intangible cultural heritage in the modern era. The scientist particularly considered it important to create a National Digital Folklore Database, to more actively involve communities living in the regions in the process and to systematically digitize and make open scientific use of folklore samples collected from Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur.