Forbidden City Bashny.Net

In 1950 Soviet engineers began building a great city in the Caspian Sea off the coast of Azerbaijan. It was a network of oil platforms, linked by hundreds of kilometers of roads. These islands were built housing for 5,000 workers, with cinemas, parks, sports complexes and other institutions. Gradually, the oil reserves dwindled, and now this place - dilapidated nostalgia for the old Soviet human engineering.

In 1999, part of the James Bond movie "The World Is Not Enough" was filmed on these platforms. But back to the story. The area of ​​Azerbaijan has been known for its rich oil resources since ancient times. "Liquid Fire", for which the Constantinople besieged by the Arabs in the seventh century, consisted mainly of crude oil, which is collected directly on the shore of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The Persians also call this area - "Land of Fire", where the priests covered their temples oil from natural sources, and this oil was oil.

Oil production on an industrial scale is not engaged until 1870, at this time, these lands conquered Russia. By that time Baku was similar to Nice, there lived a rich and rested from all over Europe. In 1941, Azerbaijan, while he was part of the Soviet Union, has delivered 175 million barrels of crude oil per year - it accounted for 75 percent of the total oil production in the country. That is why the German army during the Second World War, as sought here.

After the war, Soviet engineers arrived at a coastal island, which sailors call "Black Rock". They built a barn on the tiny island and conducted test drilling. On the night of November 7, 1949, they found high-quality oil at a depth of 1100 meters below the seabed, and soon after, this place was built the first offshore oil production platform in the world. The platform was primitive compared to modern mastodons, because it consisted mostly of wood.

After all began. Were discovered huge deposits of oil, it has built more than 200 platforms, more than 300 kilometers of roads and bridges connecting the platform on which cruised avtotsistery. Thanks to this field in the world, the mass construction of oil tankers. Multi-storey buildings were built for the 5000 workers in the sea. The workers lived for weeks in the field. Travel is home to the mainland could take six to twelve hours. The island had its own drinks plant, a soccer field, library, bakery, laundry, 300-seat movie theater, sauna, garden, kitchen garden and even parks for which the soil was brought from the mainland.

It was the Stalinist utopia for the working class. Utopia existed and was a haven for Petroleum for about ten years, until the beginning of the falling quality of the oil rigs and shut down.

Now, most of the road collapsed and represents a great danger to navigation. But I want to surprise you, there are still people out there who work and live. Earnings have only 130 dollars a month, it is at times less than it receives Neftyannik on the mainland, but there are such people.

There were plans to refurbish these places and even hovered idea to turn it into a luxury tropical resort, but nothing came of it. Today this field accounted for only a small part of extracted oil in Azerbaijan. According to expert estimates, the oil fields can produce oil more than 20 years. However, infrastructure remains a maximum of ten years. Without proper repair of the whole utopia would be under the waters of the Caspian Sea through the years so pyat.

Source: muz4in.net/news/zapretnyj_gorod_neftjanykh_platform/2012-11-16-30875