COMMUNIST ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: This City of Oil Rigs Is Collapsing Into the Caspian Sea.

In the middle of the Caspian Sea, some 55 kilometres from the coast of Azerbaijan, sits a city of interconnected oil wells and Soviet-style housing blocks propped up on scuttled ships. According the Guiness Book of World Records, it’s the oldest offshore oil platform in the world, known to the locals as Neft Daşları, or “Oil Rocks” to the Russians.

In 2009, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) boasted of extracting a total 170 million tons of oil from the Caspian over their 60-year history. They claimed there was still another 30 million left to go, but even then Oil Rocks was pretty dilapidated. Most of its 300 kilometres of roadway was zoned off and rusting into the sea, while its antiquated oil wells were sporadically killing workers in explosions and fires.

Today it’s just about impossible to get up-to-date info on the place. Oil Rocks doesn’t even appear on Google Maps, and most media reports and photos come from their anniversary celebrations in 2009.

The photos are really quite striking — but not in a good way.