Mind-Bending Soviet Era Oil Rig City on the Caspian Sea | Hacker News Reader

Mind-Bending Soviet Era Oil Rig City on the Caspian Sea

cnn.com

307 pointsrramadass92 comments

In the late 1980s, I went on an expedition along Kazakhstan's eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. One of our stops was supposed to be a fishing village, but when we got there, it was completely empty. Hundreds of mud huts sat abandoned as everyone had just disappeared. In one of the yards, a camel was still there. It felt haunting, like walking through a ghost town. The strangest part? There was no sea anywhere nearby! The Caspian had dried up so quickly that people had to leave their homes behind because they couldn’t live there anymore.

I think your expedition was actually along Aral sea. That is dried.

Caspian sea is rather stable.

The Volga Hydroelectric Station, located on the Volga River, directly impacts the Caspian Sea. The Volga River, Europe’s longest, flows into the Caspian Sea and contributes about 80% of its freshwater inflow. The construction of the Volga Hydroelectric Station and other dams along the river has altered its natural flow, reducing the volume of water reaching the Caspian Sea. This reduction has contributed to the sea’s declining water levels. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150452/the-caspian-...

Is that the dam from metro exodus?

Would make sense considering a previous level is called «The Volga», and the level with the dam[0] supposedly was to be called that. The oil rigs in the later level is decidedly the Caspian[1] though!

[0] https://metrovideogame.fandom.com/wiki/The_Taiga_(Metro_Exod...

[1] https://metrovideogame.fandom.com/wiki/The_Caspian_(Metro_Ex...

I wonder how Caspian Sea levels looks on a graph over a longer time span (haven't found one quickly).

In 1970s there was a project to connect rivers Pechora and Kama [1] to redirect water flow and increase levels of the Caspian Sea which were declining at that time. The project was abandoned but the Caspian sea levels started to increase in late 70s and 80s even without geoengineering.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pechora%E2%80%93Kama_Canal

Doesn't seem like it's that stable at all

https://geographical.co.uk/science-environment/the-caspian-s...

There is another very interesting field built over swamps and lakes in Siberia where they built the rigs on artificial islands.

https://as2.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/01/99/42/41/1000_F_199424123_E5...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samotlor_Field?useskin=vector

https://maps.app.goo.gl/nq28Ct4FLyBGx5eP8

It was deemed too strategically important and was not put on maps.

Doesn't appear on the satellite view in Google Maps. Just water.

What's up with that?

https://maps.app.goo.gl/dr71WrLZ7G97E5br9?g_st=ic

Interesting. It's not just the oil rig itself, the whole lake's satellite view is the same blue colour, while other bodies of water are more detailed.

Oceans, plus I guess the Caspian Sea, don’t get much satellite coverage because no one (except militaries) wants it enough. For the ocean, Google Maps uses bathymetry data to synthesise shaded blue imagery. The Caspian in particular I guess is such a uniform colour either because it’s so shallow that Google’s shading algorithm doesn’t shade it at all? (Compare to the northwesternmost parts of the Adriatic Sea, for example)

A big issue here too is the image stitching; aerial images are registered for big tile maps based in part on feature analysis of the edges and that just never works right for images of the ocean (mostly you have waves, and they're in different places in each image). Even if you register it perfectly the waves ensure that the edges will still have stitching artifacts. As a result the "false color" oceans that Google Maps shows just look better than actual imagery.

The "imagery" source for the oceans in Google Maps is (or at least was) GEBCO, it's a global bathymetric dataset made by registering depth sounding tracks from mostly commercial vessels. I thought maybe GEBCO didn't cover the caspian sea but it looks like it does for the last decade or so, but admittedly it seems to be data from just one survey and it's tagged as limited quality (at least in older versions of the dataset), so maybe Google ignores it.

Products like Google Maps stitch satellite and aerial photos together to make a cohesive image.

There's no reason to spend tens of thousands of dollars on getting precise images in the middle of a sea or ocean from Maxar so a low-res image is more than enough.

Also, most of the high-res images you see of regions on Google Earth or Maps tends to come from aerial photography, not satellites.

These products will also update the images every couple months to years. For example, you could see the aftermath of the Donetsk airport battle and Homs Siege in Google Maps in 2014-15, but not anymore.

It’s not a low-res image… because the oil rig city would still be blurry but somewhat visible, it’s a no-res image, entirely generated with no connection to reality.

There's historical imaging on Google Earth https://earth.google.com/web/@40.24978465,50.87045099,-66.75...

Weirdly time lapse mode has a clearer image of it.

The issue of how the satellite data feed ends up censored is pretty interesting. Here's the probable central issue:

> "While countries still reserve the right to withhold map data, the number of state and private companies that sell satellite images makes hiding the globe incredibly difficult. At the same time, this also means that state or non-state actors can beat private companies to the exclusive rights of a satellite image, meaning they can partially censor the image before others can license it."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-21/why-large-parts-of-ea...

Google Maps' satellite photography only extends a bit into seas, where it transitions to bathymetric data. It looks like the Caspian Sea doesn't have any bathymetric data though, which is strange. Even the great lakes have it.

Copernicus covers it:

https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/?zoom=13&lat=40.2387...

https://archive.ph/GCmDC

Trailer - https://vimeo.com/ondemand/oilrocks

Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neft_Da%C5%9Flar%C4%B1

And a satellite map: https://maps.yandex.com/?ll=50.858333,40.236111&spn=0.1,0.1&...

(Only Yandex seems to have imagery, the other services cut it out as it's too far offshore.)

That is hands down one of the coolest maps I have come across. Thanks a lot for sharing.

You can get walking directions, it’s about 9.5km end-to-end along the furthest connected points. Looks like the roads going further out have collapsed.

What was the Soviet film about hero Komissar riding around on a motocycle on those bridges and fixing all kinds of problems?

Oh I’d love to know. Sounds cool

Plenty of films about Oilfields of Baku.

https://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/53_folder/53_...

Because it was in glorius SovColor and because the hero had greasy ElvisPresley-pompadour, I would say it was shot in between 1960-1970.

The 1966 "26 commissars" is b/w, so maybe later than that? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8riDkh3hJHY

There's a painting in colour, however: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/26_Baku_Commissars#/media/File...

Lagniappe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan_Democratic_Republic...

EDIT: wrong geography, but apparently the "technical" long predates the Toyota Hilux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9fbO9NX1no#t=3553s

Here's another article about Neft Daşları with more photos: https://web.archive.org/web/20240225112359/https://guerrilla...

Bing Maps shows the bridges and some platforms with good resolution: https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=40.061519%7E49.607735&lvl=12.0&...

Yandex Maps shows the constellation of isolated platforms to the south-east: https://yandex.com/maps/?l=sat%2Cskl&ll=49.630795%2C40.03939...

They could call it "Wet Texas"

Isn't this where those scenes from James Bond 007's World is Not Enough were shot?

This looks like an exploit in a city-building game — spam the map with bridges, get free oil.

When did CNN get a paywall?

A month ago. https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/01/media/cnn-launch-digital-subs...

If you replace the www in the URL with lite, those articles are still free, even the paywalled articles. No picture or video content as an added bonus

Motherbase from mgs5

Came to say exactly that, similar vibe

>When filmmaker Marc Wolfensberger first found out about Neft Daşları, he thought it was a myth. He kept hearing about this secretive city

In what way it was secretive or a myth?? There were multiple books and movies about it, it was a major job source and a ton of people worked there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Tower#Secrecy

It says he learned about it in the 90s, information about distant parts of the world was much harder to come by back then, particular regarding Soviet countries (at least for Westerners)

most people ignore wwii was decided on baku.

it was the reason for Barbarossa, the first Germany defeat, and it was the only way Germany could replenish the oil used on the Russian offensive, which forced them to squeeze the polish camps dry. they lost it one baku.

it was also where most modern billionaires made their fortune.

>was also where most modern billionaires made their fortune

Could you explain this claim?

The Baku oil fields were capitalized by the Rothschild banking dynasty, which was already immensely wealthy before the oil age. Perhaps others will weigh in, but as I recall this was in response to the fabulous wealth Rockefeller was realizing in the United States. Petroleum had always been present around Baku and elsewhere, but it hadn't been exploited on the same industrial scale. It was sometimes regarded as an inconvenience which devalued land.

Exactly so. A really good, very readable book on this and oil in general is Daniel Yergin's The Prize.

yes agree that is an enjoyable and informative read..

Sure - I don't doubt that Baku made some people fabulously rich, I'm more curious about "most modern billionaires", specifically "most". I'm not even convinced that most modern billionaires made their billions through petroleum, much less Baku.

Not sure what that poster meant by that.

In this case, the Rothschilds were already a powerful European banking dynasty. There are many shadowy speculations about the different branches of this family. Perhaps this is where the confusion originates.

The Nobel family did better relative to their previous station. In the end the Baku concerns were sold to Rockefeller before being nationalized after the Russian Revolution.

i think you're making the common meaning mistake between modern and current times when in a history discussion context.

thats and the Nobels are the more public ones. there's also billionaires from the astrian dynasties all over baku.

also stalin journalism career took off there.

I suspect the intended context is most Russian billionaires.

Nobel (the Nobel prize guy) made his fortune in Baku, IMSMR

I thought he made his fortune from TNT and then founded the Nobel prize out of guilt?

I believe that's where he invented it

Nobel didn’t invent TNT. That was invented by Wilbrand. Nobel invented dynamite. Both were invented in Germany.

He (Alfred) was well-known for explosives but most of his money came from his shares in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branobel, run by his brothers.

> the first Germany defeat

Assuming you're talking about stategic defeats, I'm pretty sure the Battle of Britain was earlier. Possibbly North Africa too, but that's more debatable.

How long real state prices can keep climbing before people are forced to start colonizing seas or lakes like this?

These will never be economical. Waterworld will always be sci-fi, unfortunately.

Cities ocuppy maybe 0.5% of available land, if you’re generous. We’re not wanting for solid ground.

Globally no, but locally yes; the Netherlands famously turned a sea inlet into a lake, then reclaimed a province from that lake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flevoland.

The tradeoff is between urbanization (think Singapore) vs nature vs agriculture. The Netherands doesn't want or isn't ready for building tall yet, for some reason.

The Netherlands undertook that project for flood protection and to increase land for agriculture. You can't exactly do that on oil platforms.

> The Netherands doesn't want or isn't ready for building tall yet, for some reason.

>> Population • 9 November 2024 estimate Neutral increase 18,212,400[7] (69th) • 2011 census 16,655,799[8] • Density 520/km2 (1,346.8/sq mi) (33rd)

Compare with Singapore:

>> Density 7,804/km2 (20,212.3/sq mi) (2nd)

By the same measurement there are no skyscrapers in the US and everyone lives in farmsteads because the average population density just 38/km2?

Singapore is ~56x smaller than the Netherlands which makes it hardly comparable..

In a world where transportation is effectively instant you're correct. Here in reality, though, is another story. Living 2 hours away from a commercial center is practically useless unless you have one of the increasingly difficult to find fully remote jobs or enough money that you never have to work again.

Wouldn't that be more expensive than just building on undesirable land?

Maintenance for infrastructure and buildings on solid ground is already expensive and difficult. I can't imagine how bad it would be for a sea-based town or city.

Interesting premise.

Infill is pretty common in cities where real estate is expensive. I’m not sure what the “tipping point” is but large chunks of the city of Boston are built on what was water. The neighborhood “Back Bay” is named quite literally. NYC likewise has large chunks of prime real estate built on artificial land. Manhattan’s Battery Park was once water. The motivation here does seem to have been economic.

Singapore also is similarly growing out into the sea, though the motivation there is the lack of land in other directions, not merely price.

The Aztec city of Tenochtitlan was similarly built in the middle of a lake on a foundation of floating grass islands called “chinampas.” Here the motivation was martial - the lake served as a moat for their imperial capital.

Venice was built similarly to the Tenochtitlan on mostly a series of man-made islands, though the motivation seems to have been population growth.

The Chinese today are building artificial islands in the South China Sea, the motivation here is martial/legalistic - expand the land territory and power projection to expand their claim to the sea.

With NYC, there is a fun example of the opposite.

Manhattan Cruise Terminal in Hell’s Kitchen was constructed by cutting out parts of midtown Manhattan’s bedrock, in order to make the piers long enough to accommodate modern cruise ships. You can see on the map that those piers cut in noticeably further than any others.

Gibraltar is, to a large extent, land reclaimed on water.

Wouldn't that be Alpaugh / Tulare Lake / Central Valley south of Fresno? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake and of course the Netherlands...

People may disagree with this but IMO Tulare Lake illustrates that it's not just "real estate" because plenty of real estate is basically worthless. In this case it's land with water which can grow things (same in Netherlands), and they made more of it by continuing to suck more water out of the lake than rainfall replenished.

I mean, given how much undeveloped area exists inland, probably a very very long time?

House prices only go up in popular areas. There are cheap unpopular places.

Complaining about real estate prices is like going touristing and complaining that the place has too many tourists.

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