The year 2015 entered the history of Azerbaijan with series of political, cultural and public events.

The year's remarkable event, of course, was the Baku 2015 European Games held on June 12-28. Azerbaijan's high level hosting engraved its name forever into Europe's glorious sporting history. The European Games once again introduced the richest heritage of Azerbaijan to the world community.  

On top of that, Azerbaijan hosted some other international cultural events. Baku hosted two huge international events on intercultural dialogue, integration and cultural diversity - the 3rd World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue;  the 12th General Conference of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) and the 35th Session of the Executive Council.

Another event of a global scale was the inscription of unique copper craftsmanship of Lahij, Ismayilli region of Azerbaijan in the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. UNESCO gave great attention to Azerbaijan Mughams, ashug music, carpet weaving, tar mastery performance and other remarkable samples of heritage.   

The Translation Centre under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Azerbaijan Republic (AzTC) conducted certain events serving to the promotion of the rich heritage both in the country and abroad.

In 2015, AzTC published the books, such as "Men Without Women" by Ernest Hemingway, "Smiles of the Gods" by Akutagawa  Ryunosuke, "Az-Ya" by Olzhas Suleimenov , "Selected Works  by Patrick Modiano, "The Bolivian Diary" by Ernesto Che Guevara  and others.  

The books published at the AzTC were exhibited at various international book fairs held in Cairo, Minsk, London, Budapest, Prague, Turin, Moscow, etc.  'Candles: 101 Verses', a new English anthology of contemporary Azerbaijani poets includes 101 poems by 55 Azerbaijani poets. The presentation of the book took place at Waterstones, Europe's largest academic range bookshop.

The two-volume book "An Anthology of Modern Azerbaijan Literature" (prose and poetry) has been published in Moscow and a wide presentation of the anthology has been held at Russia's central city recently. Works by outstanding writers and poets, as well as by representatives of young literary generation are included in the anthology.

The AzTC has founded a Literary Translation Award (Prize) "Bay Leaf" to be held once every 2 years.