Inside 75-year-old Soviet ‘floating city’ slowly crumbling into the sea

A Soviet-era city built decades ago to drag up oil from deep below the Earth’s crust is slowly sinking into the sea, like a modern day Atlantis.

Neft Dashlari, also known as Oil Rocks, was hurriedly built in two years in the late 1950s with landing docks, drills and platforms added after the discovery of black gold 40 km off the coast of Azerbaijan. On completion it became the world’s first offshore oil platform and boasted a huge 300km road network laying on top of the ocean waves, as well as a park and nine-storey apartment complex for its workers.

However decades of exposure have taken a toll on the floating city and it is slowly falling into the sea. Far below the surface it is believed there is another ten years of oil waiting to be sucked from the Earth. By its 100th anniversary around 2051, it could all be under water.

The Guinness Book of Records says of the city: “Neft Daslari is an entire functioning town constructed in the Caspian Sea 55 km from the coast of Azerbaijan. Construction began in 1949 and began oil production in 1951. Construction and development continued until the town included hotels, hostels, a bakery, a power station, and a total of 7 ha of surface area, consisting of separate ‘islands’ connected by more than 200 km of trestle bridges, all supported on metal stilts.

Neft Dashlari, near Azerbaijan

“Although much of Neft Daslari has been reclaimed by the sea, its rigs still produce oil and the town has a population of around 5,000.”

Some of the city’s incredible foundations were built on sunken ships and in its heyday more than 2,000 drilling platforms were at work producing the oil. Other buildings in the sprawling city included a bakery, library, cinema and a football pitch. Of its 300km road network only around 40 remain usable. A flood also plunged an apartment building into the sea up to its second storey.

Neft Dashlari, near Azerbaijan

Left to disrepair, it will not be long before the entire sprawling complex sinks to the bottom of the sea, lost forever to the waves.

Last year it was reported an ancient city was discovered at the bottom of a lake in China and was perfectly preserved. Shi Cheng was intentionally flooded by the Chinese government in 1959 to make way for a hydroelectric dam. Nearly 300,000 people were relocated for the project, some of whom had families who lived in the city for centuries.