Far out into the Caspian Sea, a hundred kilometers away from the Azerbaijani capital Baku, lies one of the most incredible settlements in the world. A fully functional city of 3,000 living in a network of oil platforms and artificial islands connected by 300 km of trestle bridges. This is Neft Daslari, also known as Oil Rocks, and it lies fully within the world’s largest lake at an incredible distance of 55 km from the lake’s shore.

Azerbaijan has been famed for its rich oil resources since ancient times. There is evidence of oil drilling and actual trade in petroleum as early as the 3rd and 4th centuries. Historical accounts of the area’s oil and natural gas seepage can be found in old Arabic and Persian manuscripts, as well as in the writings of famous travellers such as Marco Polo. The Persians called the area the "Land of Fire”.

Photo credit: geozet.ru