Quarter in Ancient Baku (Rabad) – Analogy of Black City (Outer City) Kamil IBRAHIMOV Doctor of History
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Discovering Azerbaijan Craftsmen’s quarter in ancient Baku (rabad) – analogy of Black City (outer city) Kamil IBRAHIMOV Doctor of History THE emergence OF THE CONCEPT OF «ICHERISHEHER» HAS A TWO HUNDRED-YEAR HISTORY. IN THE 19TH CENTURY, ESPeciaLLY AFTER THE IN- TENSIFIED DEVELOPMENT OF THE OIL INDUSTRY IN 1850-1920, THE CITY BE- GAN TO GROW at AN acceLerateD Pace AND WENT BEYOND ITS waLLS. ANOTHER REASON FOR THE APPEAR- ANCE OF THE OUTER CITY IS THE POP- ULatiON GROWTH IN THE FOrtreSS, acceLerateD UrbaniZatiON AND INCREASED PRODUCTION DUE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF caPitaLISM. IT IS FROM THIS PERIOD that SEParatiON INTO THE INNER AND OUTER CITIES began. 4 www.irs-az.com View of the Black City, early 19th century n the Middle Ages, the outer city Shahristan – the walls, there emerged oil wells in Balakhani indicates that in was part of the city, which was out- large commercial and artisan quar- 1554, this well was dug and handed Iside the fortress walls. In fact, there ters - rabads. Craftsmen and mer- over to the master Allahyar Mam- were craftsmen’s quarters here. Some chants became the majority among madnur oglu. At the beginning of the of them built houses and lived in the city residents. 16th century, there were 50 such wells same place. As the process of pro- People of different professions around Baku. duction was accompanied by noise, settled in the area around the ba- In 1803, Baku resident Gasimbay smoke and exhaust waste, the rabat zaars. In the bazaars, three rows of Mansurbayov dug two oil wells near was located behind the walls. None craftspeople emerged, depending on Bibiheybat. In 1847, the discovery of of the Bakuvians wanted to live in the their professions. Progress in industri- oil in Bibiheybat deposits went down outer city. This place was inhabited al life allowed for the transformation in the world history of black gold as mainly by villagers and visitors from of cities into feudal cities. the beginning of industrial oil pro- other cities. Therefore, inhabitants of In the 10th-13th centuries, in Baku duction. the fortress always looked down on and in the outer city – rabad – there With the development of capi- residents of the outer city and called were various sectors of crafts. Archae- talism, Baku millionaires, who made them «barefoot». ological materials and sources show a fortune on oil revenues, began to The rapid growth in various that carpet-weaving, spinning, jew- build houses outside the city walls branches of handicrafts and success elry, carpentry and manufacture of – one greater than another. After in foreign and domestic trade led to glass, pottery and leather developed that, the appearance of ancient Baku important changes in the socioeco- in this period. changed. In the late 19th - early 20th nomic structure of cities. Outside An inscription found in one of the centuries, beautiful European-looking www.irs-az.com 5 Discovering Azerbaijan thousands of poods of oil per day, and a man who was not known to anyone yesterday became the owner of a vast fortune. As if by magic, Haji Zeynalabidin Tagiyev, Musa Nagi- yev, Shamsi Asadullayev, Murtuza Mukhtarov, Said Mirbabayev, Manta- shev, Mirzoyev, Shibayev, and others become millionaires. An insignificant city on the Ab- sheron Peninsula grew at an unusu- ally fast pace, the likes of which nei- ther Russia, nor Europe in general had seen. People of different nationalities flocked to Baku from all over Iran, Rus- sia and abroad in search of work and Black City. Nobel tanks happiness. The intensive exploitation of the buildings in the Baroque, Gothic, clas- at that time. As a result, Baku reached Baku oil fields began. Local and Rus- sical and neo-classical styles were a qualitatively new level of develop- sian capitalists began to set up joint- built in the outer city. ment, taking first place among other stock companies. Representatives The development of capitalism in cities of Azerbaijan by its socioeco- of major foreign capital rushed here Baku and the expansion of oil produc- nomic indicators in the second half of and subsequently occupied a lead- tion were the main causes of the ap- the 19th century. ing place. In a short time, offices and pearance of the territory around Baku, In the 1860s, it became obvious representatives of Swedish, British, where oil refineries were located. Not that the lease system of operating oil French, Belgian, German and Ameri- only plants and factories, but also sources was a worthless leftover from can firms settled in Baku. The most residential areas and houses of cul- the past, and there was a need for dif- famous among them were the com- ture were built and parks and public ferent organization of the oil business panies of the Nobel brothers and facilities were founded here. In Baku, in order to develop this industry. On Rothschilds. this area is known as «Black City» due 17 February 1872, new rules were ap- In 1874, the Swedish citizen Robert to the fact that oil and soot, which is proved under which state-owned oil Nobel visited Baku for the first time, released into the air by oil refineries, wells, which had been rented out, where he became interested in the oil cover the walls of the houses located were handed over to private individu- business. Intrigued by the prospects there in black. als in an auction. The repeal of the of developing the oil business, Robert The oil boom lease system led to a decisive break- paced Black City back and forth and After Azerbaijan was seized by through in the whole oil business. For visited many oil fields and refineries. Russia, a new military administration Baku, it was an event of enormous The enterprising young man quickly was established here. Baku became significance. realized that the oil business was the the center of Baku District of the Cas- The number of those buying and most lucrative and promising. De- pian region. With the approval of the selling oil sites surpassed all bounds. scribing his ideas in a letter to Ludvig, Caucasus governorship in 1846, the The writer and researcher, M. Suley- he persistently tried to persuade him territory was divided into new admin- manov, writes that everyone aban- to create a company. istrative-territorial units, according to doned their work and rushed to bays Initially, the Nobels concentrat- which Baku District was included in in Sabunchu in order to buy a plot of ed their activities in the village of the newly formed Shamakhi province. land, or to Black City in order to build Sabunchu, where they set up a com- In 1859, after a devastating earth- a plant and become a millionaire pany and purchased a small kerosene quake in Shamakhi, the provincial within a year or two. factory and several small oil-bearing center was relocated to Baku, and the Oil rigs that ousted primitive wells sites. Gradually increasing their lands province was renamed Baku. State everywhere often turned into large through the purchase and lease of oil institutions began to form in the city fountains, which provided tens of fields, they considerably expanded 6 www.irs-az.com Black City. Nobel tanks their activities. The Nobels rented by the company of the American mil- ness was published precisely in Baku plants in Black and White City for lionaire John D. Rockefeller - Standard - it was the first periodical devoted to purifying and processing petroleum Oil. Thus, the economic recovery of oil and mining, which was published residues. the late 19th century turned Baku into from 1899 to 1920. By the early 20th Soon, the Nobel brothers recruit- one of the largest centers of Russia century, nearly half of world oil was ed their financier friends to help them and the largest and most important extracted in Baku. – P. A. Bilderling, F. A. Blumberg, A. S. city in the Caucasus. In Black City, along with the oil in- Sundgren, B. F. Wunderlich, I. Y. Vabel- The outbreak of the oil rush is dustry, other sectors of the economy sky, M. J. Belyamin - and in 1879, the comparable only with the Klondike also began to develop. Cement, me- first foreign company and the largest Gold Rush. The intensive exploitation chanical, and beer factories, power oil company «Oil Production Fellow- of the Baku oil fields began, securing plants, foundries, textile and tobacco ship of the Nobel Brothers” with the large inflows of capital from foreign factories, steam-mills and banks were main capital of 3 million rubles was oil companies. constructed here. Trade companies founded in Baku. From 1873, the «oil belt» of Baku and shipping companies, the largest Apart from the Nobels, the Cas- began to take shape. It was known as of which was the Caucasus & Mercury, pian-Black Sea Company and the Black City. A little later, the industrial opened their representative offices Mazut trading company headed by district of Baku emerged, which in- here. 40 per cent of Russia’s maritime the Parisian banker, Rothschild, and cluded the «oil villages» of Surakhani, cargo transportation was carried out the company Royal Dutch Shell led Bibi Heybat, Balakhani and Sabunchu. through the Caspian Sea at the time. by Henri Deterding also settled in Here, in 1848, the world’s first oil well In 1883, a railway connecting Baku Baku; in the 1890s, British capitalists was drilled, the first tankers to trans- and Tbilisi was opened, in 1892 horse- led by James Whishaw founded sev- port oil were built (1880-1885), the drawn trams began to operate in the eral firms in Baku. Attempts to settle Baku-Batumi oil pipeline was laid city, and in 1900, the Baku-Petrovsk in the Baku oil fields were also made (1897-1907), and the journal Oil Busi- (now Makhachkala) railroad, which www.irs-az.com 7 Discovering Azerbaijan Nobel, Rothschild, Mantashev and Mirzoyev stopped working, and the strike was joined by workers from Bibi Heybat, Black and White City and the Balakhani-Sabunchu industrial area.