During the Soviet Union, many unique projects were implemented in the country. One of these is the settlement Oil Rocks, or “Pebbles”. This is a real city on the sea. Now it is called the "capital" of the Caspian shelf, the second Venice. The reason for the construction is oil production.
Description
Oil stones - a village 42 kilometers from the Absheron Peninsula. It was built on metal racks that connect the oil rigs. In the north and south of the harbor, pylons were built by the flooding of ships. At that time, 7 vessels were flooded, one of which was the very first oil tanker in the world. And it was built by the Nobel brothers (Sweden) in 1878. For some time, they even tried to raise the tanker, but nothing came of it.
The city has remained one of a kind since the moment of construction, there are no such settlements in the world. The village is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest offshore oil platform.
How oil was discovered
As early as 1859, in the area of the modern urban area, Oil Rocks began to study the landscape. It was possible to find out that in this place there are stone ridges, or banks. These are rocks slightly protruding from the sea, with an oil film. At the time of the discovery of oil, in the early 40s of the last century, it was the largest and richest field.
What happened before the revolution
The initiator of oil production in these places was the mining engineer V.K. Zglenitsky. He petitioned the authorities in 1896, to which he attached a drilling project. The project was unique at that time and involved drilling wells on an artificial continent in Bibi-Heybat Bay. The document provided for the construction of a platform that would not allow water to pass and should be 4 meters above sea level with the simultaneous descent of the oil received directly into the barges.
The project also provided that if there was a whole fountain, then oil would fall into the barge with a carrying capacity of 200 thousand tons. However, the mining department completely rejected the request, as it considered that there was no clear evidence of the oil content of the offshore shelf near the Absheron Peninsula.
After the second world war
The study of the water area in the place of a modern city in the sea (Oil Stones) began only in 1946. An entire expedition was organized, which revealed that there are huge reserves of oil. Already in 1948, troops landed on small islands near the Absheron Peninsula . It was several brave specialists: oil workers and installers. A year later, they managed to install a house and a small drilling rig with an area of 14 square meters and a depth of 1000 meters. From this moment began large-scale geological research. The village itself began to be built only after 10 years.
Initially, they built a power plant, a boiler room and an oil collection point, and treatment facilities. The first appeared a 2-storey residential building for employees, then another 15 were built. Later a bathhouse, a hospital and other amenities appeared.
In 1960, a college was opened in the village of Oil Rocks, where they trained future oil workers. Between 1966 and 1975, the bread factory, the workshop where lemonade was produced, worked. They built a 5-storey hostel and even a 9-storey building. They broke the park where the trees were planted. Automobile communication in the city was carried out through oil racks. And communication with Baku was maintained by air (helicopters) and water - there were regular flights of steamboats.
Modern city
Oil Rocks in the Caspian Sea are more than 200 stationary platforms. The total length of all the streets and lanes of the village is 350 kilometers. The total amount of oil produced over the entire period of existence reaches 160 million tons. On an ongoing basis, 391 wells operate with daily production of 5 tons. In parallel with oil, oil gas is produced, which currently has received about 13 billion cubic meters.
However, not everything is so rosy today, Siberian oil turned out to be much easier and cheaper to produce, therefore the city is desolate, and now there are about 2 thousand people, and once there were only 5 thousand people employed in oil production in the village.