The Republic of Azerbaijan issued its first coins in 1992, having only recently become independent of the USSR. In 1996 it issued a 50 Manat coin to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the birth of Mohammed Fuzuli. Fuzuli was a great poet, and was recognised by UNESCO who named 1994 as Fuzuli Year, quite why it took Azerbaijan 2 years after this to issue a coin, we do not know. Also Fuzuli was born in Iraq, his parents were Azerbaijani. One side of the coins shows a portrait of Fuzuli, or Fusul