Romanian press spotlights Azerbaijan’s legendary oil city at sea

Azerbaijan’s iconic offshore oil town, Neft Daşları — literally “Oil Rocks” — has captured international attention once again, this time in a glowing feature by the respected Romanian newspaper News Buzău.

The article, titled “Neft Daşları – A Unique City Built at Sea,” celebrates the world’s only city built on stilts, nestled in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.

Rising from the waves like a monument to industrial ambition, Neft Daşları was founded in 1949 following the discovery of offshore oil reserves. Over the years, the marine-based settlement became home to as many as 2,000 oil workers, creating a thriving outpost of Soviet engineering in the middle of the sea.

The article paints a vivid picture of life on Neft Daşları — a surreal landscape of metal staircases, interconnected roads, schools, parks, and living quarters all perched above open water.

Once a shining beacon of Soviet industrial might, the settlement today remains operational, continuing to pump oil from the seabed and standing as a living time capsule of mid-20th-century infrastructure.

News Buzău underscores Neft Daşları’s enduring legacy, calling it a place with no parallel in the world. Though its structures may now seem outdated, the city still commands respect as a heroic chapter in Azerbaijan’s oil history — a feat of engineering that turned the sea itself into a platform for progress.

By Tamilla Hasanova