Back in Baku

My study of the Nobel Brothers Petroleum Production Company as a colonial-style enterprise in Imperial Russia is far behind schedule, but every time I manage to find some time for it I’m reminded of the unique features of its history. Recently I finally got the chance to continue my earlier research in Azerbaijan’s National Archives, and the documentary material available there is truly great. I returned home with a few thousand copies of documents, which describe in detail, among other things, what actually happened in Baku and its oil industry during the violent years of the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, the short-lived independent Azerbaijan Republic, and the Red Army’s final conquest of Baku in spring 1920.

But this time I also took my time to follow in the footsteps of the Nobel Brothers by first visiting Georgia’s key oil port of Batumi, which nowadays also hosts a museum dedicated to the Nobel Brothers, and the critical Surami pass in the mountains, which in imperial times caused much headache for Russia’s oil industrialists eager to conquer foreign markets. In 1890 a first railway tunnel across the pass was inaugurated, through which all trains en route from Baku and Tbilisi to Batumi continue to pass – but not for much longer; Chinese construction firms are now building a more modern tunnel. The purpose is still the same: to make oil products move as efficiently as possible from East to West.

This history is thus still, quite literally, under construction. It may be added that the Nobel Brothers’ company continues to play an important role in current affairs, although it basically ceased to exist a century ago. This is because its history and brand continue to be used actively by both politicians and industrialists in present-day Georgia and Azerbaijan, especially when it comes to forging fruitful relations with Sweden and Swedish business. I will come back to this aspect; at the moment I feel it deserves a whole journal article in its own right.