Azerbaijan’s Bird Boy: How Pigeons Helped a Young Boy Find Peace | Kids on the Silk Road

When 12-year-old Reshat looks around him, he sees the oil fields of Azerbaijan. When he looks up dreamily, he sees pigeons flying to heaven. He misses his father, who died a year ago, and who also loved these birds. Reshat cautiously approaches the best pigeon keeper in the village. Will he teach him to train pigeons? Reshat plays with his friends, visits his father's grave, looks at old photos with his grandmother, and does his homework because his mother tells him to. But he prefers to be with the pigeon keeper. You can see how much he loves it when the birds eat from his hand. Meanwhile Reshat tells us his thoughts, mostly in voice-over. His father taught him that he should be kind to birds, because souls fly to heaven on their wings. While Reshat is learning all about pigeons, he discovers what he really wants.

The Silk Road was an ancient network of trade routes that were central to cultural interaction connecting the East and West. It created curiosity among cultures, for example with tea and silk from China suddenly sold in Venice. The trading may be a thing of the past, but the culture is still there… We chose the Silk Road because we want to show the kids how colorful the world is and to create understanding and curiosity of the different cultures. What if we all had less prejudice and more curiosity? Would the world be more colorful and less hierarchical? Would there be more empathy? Could we in the West try to learn from other cultures?

-------

Chapters
▷ 00:00 - Intro
▷ 00:29 - Bird Boy - Kids on the Silk Road (Azerbaijan)
▷ 21:24 - Credits