Oil Rocks

The Oil Rocks is a full town on the sea, it was the first oil platform in Azerbaijan and it was built in 1947 as an exercise of Soviet and Azeri ambition. The Oil Rocks lies 45-50 km offshore on the Caspian Sea and the most distinctive feature of the Oil Rocks is that it is actually a functional city with a population of about 5,000 and over 200 km of streets built on piles of dirt and landfill. Most of the inhabitants work on shifts; a week on Oil Rocks followed by a week on the shore. The small city includes shops, school and a library. The facility is poorly maintained, with miles of roads now submerged beneath the sea. Around some worker's dormitories, the waterline now stands at the second-floor windows. Although a full one-third of the Oil Rocks complex's 600 wells are inoperative or inaccessible, operations have continued without a significant increase in investment. The site, despite its imperfections, still produces over half of the total crude oil output of Azerbaijan.