The unusual floating city from Soviet times made up of sunken ships

Its extraction wells are connected by kilometers of bridges, holding the record for the oldest marine platform in the world. Its name translates as ‘oil rocks’ or ‘Oil Rocks’. It is located in the Caspian Sea, the largest lake in the world 55 kilometers from Bakuin Azerbaijan. At its peak it housed 5,000 people with blocks of buildings, shops, medical centres, a theatre, a heliport and even a football field. Many of whom are still active today.

Origin

Its story begins in the 1940s with an exploration of the seabed, after an airplane detected oil stains on the sea surface. They discovered that the area was a prolific oil hotspot. It thus became one of the largest oil reserves in Central Asia100 tons of oil per day could be extracted from its wells. What’s more, at its best, specifically in 1967, up to 7.6 million tonsaccording to the technicians.

The first oil exploration dates back to 1949 with a minimal platform and a house, giving rise to the first offshore oil production in the world and the largest at the moment. Engineering took care of the rest so that its structure grew from 1951 onwards. «architectural and technical miracle», filmmaker Marc Wolfensberger even said when he was allowed to visit him in the 90s.

Structure

This ‘city’ is an example of Soviet engineering creativity. To facilitate the construction of the marine platform, 7 out-of-service ships were deliberately sunk in order to use their frame as a foundation and, on them, the pillars of the buildings were mounted. In fact, CNN highlights that one of these ships was the first tanker made in the world, the Zoroaster tanker. Designed at the end of the 19th century by Ludvig Nobel, brother of Albert Nobel as a way to solve the transportation of oil. Hence, among the various names that Neft Dshlari has had was the name ‘The Island of the Seven Boats’.

The website of the Azerbaijani state oil company Aznet, which is currently in charge of extraction in the area, explains that “in 1951, To protect the island from wind and waves, six additional ships were dismantled of the Khazartanker and Khazardonanma companies and were brought here half-sunk, and an artificial bay was created around the island. The cabins and holds of the ship were used as a dining room, medical station, bedrooms and other uses for members of the drilling crew,” they indicate.

The BBC details that Neft Dashlari is built several meters above the sea surface on pillars with metal posts fixed to the seabed. «Ultimately, cThere were almost 2,000 wells and some 320 production sites, connected by more than 160 kilometers of bridges and more than 90 kilometers of oil and gas pipelines». Currently 3,000 workers alternate their stay there with 15 days on land and 15 days at sea.

The future of this floating island

Over time it came to have two power plants, two-story houses and nine-story residential areas with a park, including a bathhouse. And in 1960, the Baku Oil School building was built. Neftar Dashla declined at the same time as the Soviet Union. And despite some modernizations, andIn 2012, only 45 of its 300 kilometers of roads were passableaccording to the German media Der Spiegel.

Director Wolfensberger dedicated a documentary “Oil Rocks – A city on the sea” to him and proposed the scenarios that open up for this floating ‘city’ oronce the hydrocarbons run out. The options are a prohibitive project to dismantle the city, abandon it or convert it into a tourist spot and “pave the way for a great ecological disaster,” they indicate in the film.

This place came to provide almost 60% of production of marine oil to the entire USSR. According to Aznet, the island was his crown jewel. Now, its access to the public is limited, but it continues to maintain the reputation of having been one of the best kept secrets of the Soviet Union.