For centuries, Azerbaijan acted as a natural crossroads for the ancient Silk Road between Europe and Asia and a home to the world’s diverse cultures, religions and peoples. It has also been endowed with abundant natural resources, of which oil has become the most acknowledged and remembered.

Before the Common Era, inhabitants of present-day Azerbaijan used oil for heating and lighting purposes and as a remedy to cure burns and various skin diseases. While travelling via the Silk Road in the thirteenth century, the famous Venetian merchant and traveler, Marco Polo, used to describe Baku’s oil as one of the most sought commodities in the region. It was not until the late nineteenth century, however, that Azerbaijan’s oil would become known internationally. By the 1870s, the Nobel Brothers and the Rothschild Family were operating several oil wells in Baku and the region’s oil started to be exported abroad. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Azerbaijan was supplying more than 50 percent of the world’s oil. Continue reading →