FROM A KEROSENE VILLA TO A FLOWERY ONE

Getting to the Villa Petrolea is not so simple: the adjacent territory is a construction site for the White City and access roads. We have to get out of our car and walk the remaining part of the road over rough terrain. But it's worth it. When the construction is complete, Baku will have an amazingly beautiful place where the past and present merge in an architectural composition of the 19^th and 20^th centuries!

Piece of the past

The villa looks like a gaily decorate toy from the era of "national romanticism" (northern Art Nouveau available in St. Petersburg, Sweden, Norway) creating an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity. When you wander around near the house and look at the cottages built by the Nobels for his employees, there is a feeling that you are in a different time. Strange time, completely different from ours. The sensation increases when you enter the house. It doesn't look like a museum inside. This is a house. You feel as if the owners of the house left it for some time and are about to return. In the meantime, our guide Namig Yahya-zadeh graciously meets us in the hall. Fluent in several languages, he will expertly tell you all about historical and family details of the life of the Nobel family. He will take you through all the rooms on the ground floor, show and tell about many household items that once belonged to the members of this family. For several years the representatives of the Nobel Heritage Foundation in Baku led by Toghrul Baghirov collected them from all around the world. Then Toghrul came up with an idea of ​​restoring the abandoned and dying Nobel house. He restored the building from archival drawings, photographs, descriptions, and searched for household items and interiors that belonged to the oil kings of Baku. He left this world in January 2019, leaving us with a rich history of the development of the oil industry in Azerbaijan. Since April 25, 2008, the Nobels' heritage has found a new life here. Toghrul populated the rooms with genuine household items of that time and personal household items of the family members and, keeping the tradition laid down by the Nobels, created (in addition to the museum!) the Nobel Oil Club and the International Conference Centre.

Oil site, kerosene plant and oil pipeline

The Nobel brothers who arrived to Baku in 1878 did many things here. They laid the foundation of the Azerbaijani oil industry. They purchased the first oil field in Balakhani, and a kerosene plant in the Black City. They created the first Baku-Balakhani-Black City oil pipeline, launched the first oil tanker called the Zoroaster by the Caspian Sea. Oil from Baku has played an exceptional role in the establishment of the financial fund of the Nobel Prize.

The Nobel Brothers' House Museum is located in the Baku village of Keshla. Built in 1882-1884, the Nobel House has been open to visitors as a house museum since 2008. The restoration of the complex called Villa Petrolea was carried out in 2007. The Nobel Brothers House Museum is the first museum of the family outside of Sweden. Here you can find household items and interiors that the Nobel family used. Some of these items were purchased at auctions held in various countries of the world.

Signs and Symbols

There are many clocks in the museum. There is a reason for that. The clocks were here even when the Nobels lived in the house. A clock is a symbol of time, and the owners used to remind themselves that time is more expensive than gold! A completely modern motto for a true businessman!

The history of the Nobels in Azerbaijan is interesting. It all started with Robert Nobel who went to Azerbaijan to find quality wood for his rifles but found oil. But he also found the iron tree in Lankaran. Talking about his sons, Emmanuel Nobel once described them as follows: “Robert has a penchant for speculation, Ludwig is more genius, and Alfred is a hard worker.” But it was Robert, who easily risked family money but did not lose. In 1875, the Nobel family ends up in Baku, and four years later (1879) they officially established the Baku Oil Nobel Brothers Partnership, Branobel for short. In 1882, at the confluence of the Black and White Towns, they built the village of Petrolea, which went down in the history of urban planning as Villa Petrolea.

From a letter to the family of the General Manager of The Nobel Brothers Partnership, August, 1882. By Gustav Turnudd

“All buildings are constructed in the Byzantine style from finely worked sandstone. Some of them will have one floor, others two. Beautiful gardens and parks will spread around. Fresh water is delivered daily from the Volga and poured into the reservoir, from where it is piped to the forges, bathrooms and hoses. From the plant, natural gas is supplied to the houses for cooking and heating the rooms. Lighting at the plant and in the village is already partially electric. There is a telephone line too. I almost forgot to mention that we install very expensive equipment to reduce the temperature in the rooms of Villa Petrolea to 15-20 degrees using compressed air to make the temperature more familiar to the northerners. We will also have a hospital here surrounded by a beautiful garden. We are building excellent barracks for our guards — 40 specifically elected guardsmen from St. Petersburg, all well-armed...” We can only speculate why such extreme protective measures were needed. The entry to the Villa Petrolea was strictly prohibited for outsiders. The Baku newspapers were constantly reporting on this fact.

From the book of a Russian writer and traveller Yevgeni Markov (1901)

“The villa is the seat of all the main stewards and figures of the Nobel plants. The site hosts several very beautiful and spacious buildings. In one of them, there is a club for employees with a library and billiard room with a very extensive dance hall. Many outsiders but the employees of the plant visit the club. So, the plant and a special steam boat are constantly busy with bringing guests in and out on famous days. In another building, there is a beautiful bowling alley with a buffet and a pub. The two largest houses or villas, if you will, are a sort of palaces with picturesque galleries and servants' apartments. We went into some of them... Almost all Swedes are here, and therefore there is Swedish order and cleanliness everywhere. The kitchens sparkle with their dishes, as if a store of copper things. The rooms are comfortable and spacious. The plant’s chief director also lives in the Villa Petrolea. His house is a real summerhouse. Now the territory of the villa is supplied with water. One can hope that this charming corner will turn from the present 'kerosene villa' into a real green and flowery site.”

From the book The Past Days by Manaf Suleymanov

“The cottages were accommodated by the administration of the Nobel Brothers Partnership, which mainly consisted of Swedish engineers and employees. They have ordered many sculptures, busts for the garden, paintings, many books for the library — all from St. Petersburg. The rooms were decorated with expensive carpets made by Azerbaijani and Persian masters. The Nobels attracted well-known engineers, talented economists, chemical scientists, and technologists to work in the company. They paid them high salaries, of course. Russians and Muslims were snubbed and were hired for low-paying dirty work. The Nobel brothers pumped hundreds of millions of rubles from Baku, however, they have not built any noticeable building in the city for the entire time of being in Baku. / ... / Oddly enough, the Nobel brothers are known among the people as liberals who allegedly “care” for the working people and create “good” conditions for them. In fact, they have declared a ten-hour working day in the oil fields and plant, which could often be extended to eleven, or even twelve hours; the living conditions for the workers have been slightly eased. For example, they have provided special rooms for Muslim workers so that they could pray and perform religious rituals, opened several pharmacies and hospitals, and have given loans for building houses. / ... / In a short time, the companions (the Nobels and other shareholders) have become the owners of oil fields in Surakhani, Balakhani, Bibi Heybat. Thy leased large plots of land between the Black and White Towns, built oil refineries, plants for manufacturing sulfuric acid, copper smelters, iron foundries and marinas.”

Azerbaijani architect and researcher S. S. Fatullayev

“As far as the architecture of industrial areas of Baku is concerned, it is worth mentioning the architectural phenomenon of that time, the so-called Villa Petrolea - a complex of buildings and structures erected in the vast park that once belonged to the Nobel Brothers Partnership. The construction of this complex was not only the first successful example of park architecture in the industrial area of ​​the city, but also in many ways a unique example for the world dendropark architecture of that time.” Gardens were an indispensable element of villages located even in difficult climatic conditions.

From the book Pages From the Nobels' Family Life in Baku by Tamara Humbatova

“On April 21, 1896 at 13:00, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Savior was laid down on the Telephone Street, in the courtyard of the German Lutheran School. At the same time, Emmanuel Nobel decided to build the Black Town Orthodox Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah in Baku. The Nobels also donated to the construction of another orthodox church in Derbent. The Nobel Brothers Partnership actively participated in the construction of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. It also listened to the request of its workers and built a Muslim mosque in Balakhani. They funded the maintenance of the Holy Tomb of the Bibi-Heybat Mosque. The spiritual symbol of the Nobel’s activity in Baku was the temple of fire-worshipers in Surakhani, the image of which can be found on all their memorabilia from Baku. On March 14, in 1899, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Savior was consecrated in Baku. The ceremony was attended by the representatives of the Nobel family. The family lived their lives in respect for the city and the people with whom fate brought them together. On December 10, when the annual Nobel Prizes are awarded, the Evangelical Lutheran community of Baku holds the Nobel Family Good Memorial Day. For the first time this day was celebrated in 1996 with the support of AIOC, and since then it has become a tradition.”

Oil Empire

This is a piece of history from the life of a Swedish family, which accepted Russian citizenship and connected its life also with Baku. The story, which is carefully kept by the residents of Baku and which they readily share with tourists and guests of the city. With everyone who is interested in the events of the first oil boom in Baku: numerous tourists from Russia, the CIS countries, Europe, Israel. Today, Villa Petrolea is not only a symbol of time but also is an icon of the unusual and diverse talents of the Nobel brothers, Ludwig, Robert and Alfred, and especially Emmanuel Nobel, the son of Ludwig, which went down in the history of the world oil industry as Nobel the Bakuvite, who has successfully led the Nobel oil empire in Baku. He was a gifted manager and financier, who had successfully competed with the Rothschilds and Rockefellers keeping them at a considerable distance from the Baku oil. His company was the second largest in the world. He succeeded using completely modern methods in trade to create his own system - from oil production to its marketing.

The Branobel property was nationalized on June 20, 1918. This meant that the enterprise no longer belonged to the Nobels. Due to the events of that time in Azerbaijan, the Nobels had to leave Baku. It is said that his own workers saved the life of Emmanuel, whom the Bolsheviks intended to kill. He then returned to Sweden.

After the former owners left the villa, the building served some time as an orphanage, then as a military unit, a horse company, and something else. By 2000, the mansion fell into disrepair and was a miserable sight. The once magnificent mansion built in the Byzantine style by the famous Italian architect Bora was in disrepair and consisted of only walls without windows and doors. There were no ceilings at all, the beams were littered, desolation everywhere, stray dogs, cats. However, then the dilapidated building of the mansion turned into what it is now.

In the 21st century, Ludwig’s great-grandson, Philip Nobel, the founder of the Nobel International Fraternity Foundation aimed at supporting science in Azerbaijan and outside the countries of the Eurasian region, the founder of the prize for young economists of the Caspian region, visited the Villa Petrolea in December 2010. In this house of his ancestors, Nobel and the then Chairman of the Baku Nobel Heritage Foundation, Dr. Toghrul Baghirov, were awarded the Order of the North Star of Sweden. The story continues...