An aerial view of Dasri oil city in Azerbaijan/@murad.ilkin/
Very few know the city of Naft Dasri (Oil Rocks) in Azerbaijan.
It is actually a kind of floating rock on which thousands of people live, and it is in danger of extinction and sinking under the waters of the Caspian Sea.
This "city" was built in 1949 as part of the former Soviet Union's oil rig project.
It is the first ever offshore oil drilling rig so it is even listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.
This entire city, located about 40 km off the coast of Azerbaijan, is about 27 km in size, with some of its rigs built on the remains of sunken ships. In the years leading up to its establishment, it was discovered that a huge oil reservoir was buried under the water in the area - what which led to its establishment so that oil extraction work could begin. Josef Stalin himself oversaw the project before moving on to the development of oil drilling in Siberia.
In the past 60 years, the local oil fields have produced more than 170 million tons of oil and 15 billion cubic meters of natural gas During the peak period there were around 2,000 oil rigs in the city and around 5,000 people lived there, but today this place is almost neglected, with the future of the city of Lot in fog, and what was once a historic architectural achievement is now a bleak uncertainty.
To make the rig habitable, 300 km of roads were built, and by the end of the 1950s there were most of the services a person needs to live there, including two power plants, a boiler house and a medical center. Jump in time to the 1970s and the city of Nassau It has a nine-story apartment building with its own park, as well as other modern developments.
To this day, about 2,000 people still live and work in the city, but of the 300 kilometers of roads that were once built, only 45 kilometers remain usable.
Also, a flood that hit it a decade ago left several entire apartment blocks submerged in water up to the second floor.
Extend the act
This is how you will improve performance and pleasure in bed - with an exclusive sale
in collaboration with "Gabra"
This is what remains of the Dasri oil city in Azerbaijan/GettyImages, Reza
As of 2012, the rig workers were still earning $130 a month and while that doesn't sound like much, it was still "twice as much as someone employed in the same job on the continent," the German news site Der Spiegel reported at the time.
In the article, they went on to detail the state of 'destruction' in which the city found itself: "Submerged steel constructions pose a threat to the ships, abundant oil leaks are visible everywhere and the equipment is falling apart."
More failed cities
A huge city that cost 100 billion dollars remains almost completely empty: "Only crocodiles infest here"
Tourists flock to a ghost town in Turkey with 500 abandoned "Disney castles"
Abundant sea, many air directions../GettyImages, Reza
So why wasn't the city dismantled if it was causing so many problems?
Because it will cost more money than just letting nature do its thing.
"The proper dismantling of Dasari Oil will probably be more expensive than continuing to allow it to produce a reduced amount of oil," experts explain, "In the eyes of the government, the place is still the proud and well-kept secret that it was in the days of the Soviet Union. It is still very difficult for foreigners to gain access to the city, which even Not shown on Google Maps".
According to estimates by geologists today, the volume of extractable oil reserves remaining there reaches about 30 million tons.
The oil deposits beneath the city are expected to last only another 10 years, meaning the city will eventually become redundant and the Russian government will likely allow the sea to completely take it over, until it disappears completely.
More on the same topic:
oil
Azerbaijan
Joseph Stalin