It is a sliver of sand in the Caspian, a flat, low-lying island surrounded by cobalt blue sea and an aura of mystery - Azerbaijan’s Eastern-most point lays placid some 45km east of Baku, on the tip of the Absheron peninsula where the capital sprawls, and has been the frontier of the country’s oil adventures and aged oil drills are a stark reminder of that past.

Its name has been changing according to the country’s political fate and has seen more history on its shores than its tiny size would suggest. Fire worshipper Zoroastrians built a temple on the 11km long and 4km wide piece of land and for centuries the islet was known as Pirallahi, or God’s sacred place. During the Russian empire it was referred as Svyatoy, the holy one. In 1936 it was renamed after Russian revolutionist and a close friend of Joseph Stalin, Artёm Fyodorovich Sergeev - widely known as Comrade Artёm. At the fall of Soviet Union, in 1992, the island got its ancient name back, yet, most people still call it after its Soviet name, Artёm.

Pirallahi-aka-Artёm was one of the first areas to develop drilling in Azerbaijan’s oil rush at the turn of the 19th century. History has it that in 1820 the island was divided in two areas, one residential and one dedicated to the production of paraffin, then in 1868 Russian professionals moved on the island with their families and two wells were drilled.

By 1901 an oil field was developed and a year later “Nobel Brothers,” the Swedish company which pioneered oil drilling in Azerbaijan, drilled their first oil well. The Swedes kept the information secret in order to buy land at low prices from the local population, yet they were trusted employees - they introduced a 10-hour work shift down from the 14-hours in force at the time, paid good salaries, provided housing for families, and allowed Muslims to take breaks to pray. In 1912 the Nobel Brothers built a narrow-gauge railway, connecting the pier to the town, which no longer exists. The Nobel Brothers drilled in alongside Russian companies like Shibayev, belonging to Russian industrialist Sidor Shibayev.