By Vestnik Kavkaza
In recent years, Baku - the largest and most developed city in the South Caucasus - has been going through another revival. Geographically, Baku has always had a beneficial situation – it is a sea port and a strategic point in the South Caucasus, through which trade paths from Russia to Iran passed. The key transport position of Baku has influenced the economy of the city and its architecture since the Middle Ages.
From the second half of the 19th century, when exploration of the oil fields of Absheron started, Baku became a major industrial center of the Russian Empire. The city grew and developed at a high pace. Not only local, but also foreign manufacturers invested in oil production. Lenin wrote that “almost all oil is extracted in Baku Province, while the city of Baku gas turned from a small town into a high-class industrial center of Russia.”
In the late 19th century, oil-producing enterprises were concentrated in the eastern part of Baku. It was called the Black City, due to the black smoke and tar.
The Black City is a heritage of the first oil boom. It played a big role in the oil industry for more than 100 years. Oil was recycled, stored and transported from the city.
Maxim Gorky, who visited Baku twice in the 1890s, wrote: “The oil crafts stayed in my memories as an ingenious picture of dark hell. The picture suppressed all traditional fantastic tales of a scared mind, all attempts by preachers of patience and lenience to threaten a person with demons, boilers of tar in everburning flames of hell.”
Gorky managed to visit fields as well: “It was unnaturally stuffy there, I felt poisoned and constantly coughed. Straying in the forest of oil derricks, I saw green-and-black oil ponds between them; the ponds seemed to be bottomless. The land and people are bedewed, sopping with dark fat. The green puddles recall corruption, sand smacked rather than creaked underfoot.”
It was the rate for priceless Baku oil which was transported from Absheron by the English-French-Russian Bank Consortium with the participation of German banks at first; and after 1917 – by the Azneft group. They invested only in the production and transportation of oil, and nobody paid attention to environment or city building. The General Plan of Economic and Social Development of Baku till 2005, which was approved in 1987, required development of the city within the strict framework of aplanned economy, but many of its clauses were broken.
Thus, independent Azerbaijan was left face to face with its Black City. However, relatively soon the oldest center of the world oil industry turned into one of the most beautiful cities of the world.
The Contract of the Century, which was signed in Baku in 1994, enabled Azerbaijan to establish a favorable investment climate. An architectural appearance of not only Baku, but also certain regions speckled with modern residential buildings, skyscrapers, hotels, shopping malls, offices, museums, while the capital got its new symbol – the Flame Towers, which can be seen from all places in the city and from the sea.
Describing the construction boom, experts who visited Baku defined three directions of the construction:
- Reconstruction and modification of old buildings and facades of buildings of the Soviet era, according to one style and color. All facades of buildings on central streets are perfect and beautifully enlightened at night;
- Preservation of the old city;
- Modern construction, which cannot be compared with any city in the former USSR.
The Black City has the prospect of turning into a White City. Outdated industrial facilities began to be dismantled in 2006; thw polluted lands of the Black City began to be cleaned. And now one of the main transport lines – Nobel Avenue, which connects Baku and the international airport n.a. Heydar Aliyev, passes through it.
The Baku White City Project is being fulfilled by Atkins, a UK company involved in engineering and architectural projecting; Fosters+Parthers, the architectural company which was founded by Norman Fosters; and an American architectural bureau of F+A Architects. With the help of these masters, Azerbaijani experts have developed a concept requiring architectural variety, ecological compatibility and integration of a new plot of land into the existing city context.
Baku White City is one of major modern projects in the world, which is being fulfilled in an environmentally regenerated industrial zone. It covers 221 ha. After the end of the project, the population of Baku White City will be similar to the number of citizens of Andorra.
3.7 million square km will be built up in Baku White City. The project prolongs the boulevard line by 1.3 km, turning it into the longest boulevard in the world.
A pearl of the seafront is the 65-meter observation wheel which is bigger than the Grande Roue de Paris. Baku White City will have a fountain square. A new metro station on Fountain Square of Baku White City will continue the existing Azadlyg-Khatai line.
It is interesting that Baku White City is situated 4 km from the main sight of Baku – the Maiden Tower.
Baku hopes that, after the end of the project, the industrial appearance of the Black City will pass away, and Baku White City will replace it, being a new modern center of Baku and one of the most attractive places to invest in.
