Editing Baku (section)

=== Discovery of oil ===
{{Main| Petroleum industry in Azerbaijan}}
[[File:Baku, 1861.jpg|thumb|300px| Panoramic view of Baku bay in 1861]]
The Russians built the first [[oil refinery|oil-distilling factory]] in [[Balaxani]] in 1837. The first person to drill oil in Baku was an ethnic [[Armenians|Armenian]] [[Ivan Mirzoev]], who is also known as a 'founding father of Baku's oil industry.'<ref>{{Cite book|last=Daintith|first=Terence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g1G52SwFjeQC&q=mirzoev+baku&pg=PA157|title=Finders Keepers?: How the Law of Capture Shaped the World Oil Industry|date=2010|publisher=Earthscan|isbn=978-1-936331-76-5|language=en|access-date=13 May 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Altstadt|first=Audrey L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FgtZAAAAYAAJ|title=Economic Development and Political Reform in Baku: The Response of the Azerbaidzhani Bourgeoisie|date=1980|publisher=Wilson Center, Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies|language=en|access-date=13 May 2021 }}</ref> Digging for oil began in the 1840s, with the first [[oil well]] drilled in the [[Bibiheybət|Bibi-Heybat]] suburb of Baku in 1846.<ref name="Smil">{{Cite book |last= Smil |first= Vaclav |title= Energy and Civilization: A History |date= 2017 |publisher= The MIT Press |isbn= 978-0-262-03577-4 |location= Cambridge |page= 246}}</ref> Large-scale [[oil exploration]] started in 1872 when the Russian imperial authorities auctioned parcels of oil-rich land around Baku to private investors. The pioneer of oil extracting from the bottom of the sea was the Polish geologist [[Witold Zglenicki]]. Soon after, investors appeared in Baku, including the [[Nobel Brothers]] in 1873 and the [[Rothschild family|Rothschilds]] in 1882. An industrial area of oil refineries, better known as [[Black City (Baku)|Black Town]] ({{langx |ru| Чёрный город}}), developed near Baku by the early 1880s.<ref>{{Cite book |last= Yergin |first= Daniel |title= The Prize, The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power |date= 1991 |publisher= Simon & Schuster |isbn= 978-0-671-79932-8 |location= New York |pages= 57–63}}</ref>
[[File:BibiEybat.jpg|thumb|270px|Oil workers digging an oil well by hand at Bibi-Heybat]]
Professor [[A. V. Williams Jackson]] of Columbia University wrote in his work ''From Constantinople to the Home of Omar Khayyam'' (1911):
{{blockquote|Baku is a city founded upon oil, for to its inexhaustible founts of naphtha it owes its very existence, its maintenance, its prosperity... At present Baku produces one-fifth of the oil that is used in the world, and the immense output in crude petroleum from this single city far surpasses that in any other district where oil is found. Verily, the words of the Scriptures find illustration here: 'the rock poured me out rivers of oil.

Oil is in the air one breathes, in one's nostrils, in one's eyes, in the water of the morning bath (though not in the drinking water, for that is brought in bottles from distant mineral springs), in one's starched linen – everywhere. This is the impression one carries away from Baku, and it is certainly true in the environs.<ref>Abraham Valentine Williams Jackson. {{Cite web |title= From Constantinople to the Home of Omar Khayyam |url= https://archive.org/stream/fromconstantino00jackgoog#page/n10/mode/2up |url-status= live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120318114642/http://www.archive.org/stream/fromconstantino00jackgoog#page/n10/mode/2up |archive-date= 18 March 2012 |access-date= 1 December 2011 |publisher= The Macmillan Company | year = 1911 | page = 25}}</ref>}}

By the beginning of the 20th century, half of the oil sold in international markets was extracted in Baku.<ref>{{Cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=EVABAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA16 |title= Troubled Waters: The Geopolitics of the Caspian Region |publisher= I.B. Tauris |year= 2003 |isbn= 978-0-85771-755-9 |page= 16 |author=R. Hrair Dekmejian |author2=Hovann H. Simonian}}</ref> The [[oil boom]] contributed to the massive growth of Baku. Between 1856 and 1910 Baku's population grew at a faster rate than that of [[London]], [[Paris]], [[New York City|New York]], or [[Tokyo]].