Nobel prized
The home of Baku’s oil barons has been reopened
WORDS | BRIGID KEENAN
IT IS 130 YEARS SINCE THE NOBEL BROTHERS STARTED THEIR OIL COMPANY, Branobel, in Azerbaijan – a fairly obscure anniversary you might think. But that’s not how they see it in the oil capital of Baku where they are proud of the memory of their foreign oil aristocrats – the Nobels and the Rothschilds – who went there in the late 19th century to exploit the liquid energy that permeates the earth in this region.
You can literally smell oil in the air in Baku. In the old days its citizens would entertain themselves at night by going out into the harbour on boats and throwing matches to ignite the oil on the surface of the water. And,
of course, Baku is famous for its old Zoroastrian Fire Temple – dedicated to the ancient religion which originated from Persia – that was built around a flame which never went out because it was fed by a small oil well beneath. Apparently the oil has now dried up and the eternal fire is supplied by a pipeline.
Then, as now, the oil barons were integral to the state. While to the rest of the world the name Nobel is synonymous with the Peace Prize, to this nation in the Caucasus it stands for something different. In fact, such is the significance of the Nobels to Azerbaijan, that for this anniversary an exhibition about their
business in Baku has been put together from the state archive and other sources, and is currently travelling around the world.
“The Nobels’ innovations transformed what was a primitive industry into one of the world’s leading oil sources,” says Naida Abbasova, one of the organisers, “but only a few people outside our country are aware of it. That is the reason for doing the exhibition.” Hence, The Nobels and Baku Oil appeared at the European Commission in Brussels last month before travelling on to Stavanger, Norway; Stockholm, Sweden; and Houston, US. It will eventually be housed in the new Oil Museum that is planned for Baku.
Until recently I lived in Baku – my husband, a diplomat, was posted there – and I found myself intrigued by the Nobels. Their house still exists (well, sort of) and though their business doesn’t, one can’t fail to be impressed by their achievements. Apart from anything else, they built the world’s first oil tanker, called Zoroaster after the founder of the Zoroastrian faith; they had the first telephone in Baku; and they used to import tons of ice to cool their house in the summer (it was put into a tunnel that ran under the building).
The Nobels got into oil by chance. The story goes that Robert Nobel, engineer brother of prize-founder Alfred, was sent down to Baku from St Petersburg (where the family had migrated from Sweden in 1838) by his older brother Ludwig, to look for wood to make rifle butts. The Nobels’ factory made weapons for the Russian Army. Instead of wood, he found a city obsessed by oil – Ludwig Nobel later described Baku at that time as being like the Klondike in the gold rush – so he abandoned the original idea and persuaded his brothers to invest in oil. (Part of the money that Alfred Nobel’s estate would later put up for the Nobel Prize was from his investment in Baku oil.)
Ludwig came from Russia to organise the new business in Baku, and became known as the Oil King, running, as he did, the second largest oil company in the world at that time (after Standard Oil in America). Sadly this did not happen in time to save his father from going bankrupt in Russia and moving the family back to Sweden.
Unlike the Rothschilds, who built an extravagantly decorated palace that now serves as the National Art Gallery in Baku itself, the Nobels chose to build on nine hectares of land a couple of kilometres outside the town, near their own wells and storage tanks, and overlooking the Caspian Sea. This area became known as the Black City.
Their house, appropriately named Villa Petrolea, was quite modest compared to the baroque excesses of other oil barons, but it became a hub for Baku’s wealthy society. Near it they built a club (where on Wednesdays and Saturdays “the entire colony” went to dance and play billiards), as well as houses for their managers, a school, a clinic for the workers, a theatre (an orchestra was formed to play there) and a beautiful park. Ludwig was proud of what he had achieved for his employees. As he wrote at the time: “Now everyone enjoys gathering here, and they avoid the bad company that they were too easily led astray by before.”
The park was difficult to get going: earth had to be brought from the fertile area of Lenkaran in South Azerbaijan, and plants, thousands
of them, were imported from neighbouring countries as well as from France and Italy. In the mid-1880s Ludwig wrote to his daughter Anna in Sweden complaining of the lack of water to make his garden grow: “All we have accomplished are some flowerbeds and some kitchen herbs… next year I hope we can do better with water, and then, with God’s help, my dream of a green Villa Petrolea, a little paradise in Baku, will come true.”
It did, but not for long. In 1920 the Nobel house, the theatre, the staff houses, the club and the clinic were all burned to the ground by the Red Army when the Bolsheviks stormed into Baku. To the Communists, of course, the Nobels were class enemy number one. Their huge oil business was nationalised and the Nobels’ dream ended abruptly.
For the 70-odd years of Soviet rule, nothing happened to the sad relics of the Nobels’ life in Baku, apart from the construction of a rather tacky amusement centre, Luna Park, in the lower, shore end, of Ludwig Nobel’s huge park. Their buildings were left to ruin until 2004 when Togrul Bagirov, a successful Azerbaijani businessman and admirer of the Nobel family created the Baku Nobel Heritage Fund to rebuild the house and turn it into a museum, conference centre, upmarket club and hotel. In 2007 the project was completed and Michael and Gustav Nobel, great-grandsons of Ludwig, came to Baku to officially re-open Villa Petrolea.
Bagirov is still combing the global antiques market to find the furniture that vanished from the house before it burned. He has found several pieces in Russia: Ludwig’s great black desk, his silver samovar, some clocks and his champagne cooler. The Red Army might turn in its grave, but the Nobels’ story – “a glorious part of Azerbaijani oil history” – now seems safe forever.
Brigid Keenan is the author of Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse. Villa Petrolea and the Baku Nobel Heritage Fund, 57/2 Nobel Avenue, inside Nizami Park, Baku. Entrance is free. Open daily, 11am to 7pm.
