...Black Gold...

Those who have never seen oil rigs and are not familiar with the oil industry might not realize what they see on these pictures....

These are oil rigs...in the middle of Baku village "Suraxanı" (to be pronounced [Surakhani]).

Suraxanı is the first location in Azerbaijan where first oil and gas resources were discovered...

Oil is what attracted to Azerbaijan Nobel brothers and the Rockefellers, in early XX century, fuelled the Soviet Army weapons to win World War II and made Azerbaijan economy the fastest growing economy in the world with 35% GDP growth rate in 2007. (to name only a few major facts...)

As everyone knows nowadays, oil is a mixed blessing. It gives vast opportunities and wealth but it also gives lots of radiation (initially labourers were actually extracting oil with buckets just going into the well; as you can see on the pictures there are people that still live on these lands, fuelled with oil radiation); "friends" to the country that are friends only because the country has the energy (and you know what happens when loyalty of friends is only caused by wealth) and laid-back attitude to the citizens. But of course every threat can be turned into opportunity, I believe, especially now, in XXI century, when there are so many examples in the history...

Today we are having a beautiful spring weather in Baku and Sheki and it is a shame that I am posting these pictures I took on a gloomy day...but I came across them among my pictures and decided to share the pictures and a bit of a history with you...