The Land Of Fire

With loads of historical sites and flashy architectural feats, Azerbaijan is one fiery fantasy.

- Lee Yu Kit

It soon becomes clear to me why Azerbaijan means “Land of Fire”. The country is endowed with an abundance of natural gas and oil – so much so that the stuff oozes out of the ground. In the modern age, that’s a blessing, but before the Industrial Age and the insatiable thirst for mineral fuel, all that oily goo was considered a nuisance.

Not for nothing was Azerbaijan the supplier of more than half the global oil supply in the early part of the 20th century. The first mechanical oil well in the world was sunk in Azerbaijan. Oil barons became fabulously wealthy – including the Nobel Brothers, one of them, Alfred Nobel, lives on for the prestigious prizes that bear his name.

Oil & Fire

Oil derricks and wells litter the countryside for as far as the eye can see, in the country of the Absheron peninsula where much of the oil is located. The aspect is indeed bleak, being barren and largely shorn of vegetation, but what it lacks in natural beauty, it more than makes up for in mineral wealth. Oil and natural gas are so abundant that a town is named after an oily swamp where camels get bogged down in. Early travellers noted that it could be dangerously easy to ignite a long-burning fire in this land from natural gas seepage.