Pirallahi Island or Pirallakhi Island (

Azeri Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic people living mainly in Azerbaijan (Iran), northwestern Iran and the Azerbaijan, Republi ...

: ''Pirallahı adası'') is an island in the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

. The island is part of

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

, and is located right off the northeastern shore of the

Apsheron Peninsula The Absheron Peninsula ( az, Abşeron yarımadası) is a peninsula in Azerbaijan. It is the location of Baku, the biggest and the most populous city of the country, and also the Baku metropolitan area, with its satellite cities Sumqayit and Khyrd ...

, to the ENE of

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...

. The island is long and has a maximum width of . Administratively, Pirallahi Island belongs to the Pirallahi district of Baku.The total square of the island is 14.6 km².

Oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

deposits on the northern part of Pirallahi are estimated at 1.2 million tons. Flights to other Caspian isles are available at the heliport on the southern tip of the island.

History

Pirallahi literally means "the shrine of Allah", from the word pir - a shrine / holy place. In ancient times, there was a place of worship and pilgrimage on the island, but there is no exact data on which religion it belongs to. According to one version, it was a shrine of the Zoroastrians, and according to others,

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...

. During

Russian Imperial The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The ...

times the island's name was Svyatoy (from

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: Святой - "The holy one"). It is said that undersea booty from a 1660 sea battle between

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

ns and

Cossack The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...

leader

Stepan Razin Stepan Timofeyevich Razin (russian: Степа́н Тимофе́евич Ра́зин, ; 1630 – ), known as Stenka Razin ( ), was a Cossack leader who led a major uprising against the nobility and tsarist bureaucracy in southern Russia in 16 ...

lies off the northern tip of the island. Pirallahi Island is said to be the among the first places where oil was extracted in

, and in the 1820s it was divided into two separate areas, one residential, and another where oil was refined into paraffin. In 1934, oil explorers dropped metal drills off piers from the island, which at the time was considered an advancement in offshore oil exploration.

Artyom Island

While Azerbaijan was part of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, the island was renamed as Artyom Island in the 1936 (Russian: ''Остров'' ''Артёма'') after the pioneer revolutionary ''Comrade Artyom'' (

Fyodor Sergeyev Fyodor Andreyevich Sergeyev (, ; March 19, 1883 – July 24, 1921), better known as Comrade Artyom (), was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, agitator, and journalist. He was a close friend of Sergei Kirov and Joseph Stali ...

). Pirallahi Island still has a settlement called

Artyom Artyom (russian: Артём) is a male given name common in Russia and other Slavic-speaking countries. The name uses the " ё" letter, which can be transcribed to English as "e" but still has the "yo" sound. The Belarusian spelling is Арцё� ...

. The old Artyom village was evacuated due to rising water levels of the Caspian Sea and residents moved to a series of apartment towers built by German prisoners in 1948.On October 5, 1999, the current name was returned. In the early 1950s, by the construction of a dam, the island was connected to the mainland and thus transformed from an island into a peninsula. In 2016, a road bridge was built on the site of the dam, under which ships can pass Oil and gas production is carried out on the island, fishing is also widespread among the population and there is a fishing port on the island. Previously, the Pirallahi railway station (formerly Artyom) functioned - the terminal on the branch from Baku, at the moment the station and the railway have been dismantled.

Population

In 1968 the population of the village of Artyom-Ostrov reached 14.4 thousand people. The population of the island is 17,281 people (according to the 2020 census), the density is ~ 3000 people / km².

Solar station

In order to increase the production of alternative and renewable energy and improve its quality, the Pirallahi solar power plant with a capacity of 2.8 megawatts was commissioned in the Pirallahi district of

. The construction of the Pirallahi solar power plant was launched in 2014. After completion of construction by the end of 2020, the plant's capacity will be 12.8 megawatts.

High-Tech Park

A 50-hectare

industrial park An industrial park (also known as industrial estate, trading estate) is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. An industrial park can be thought of as a more "heavyweight" version of a business park or office park, ...

, High-Tech Park, dedicated to the ICT industry, is being established on the island by the Azerbaijan Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies.High-Tech Industrial Park
website, accessed 4 November 2014.

Places of interest

The Pirallahi Lighthouse biggest lighthouse in Azerbaijan is the Absheron lighthouse, located in the territory of Gurgen settlement. The lighthouse, built on hard rocky cliffs at Pirallahi Island built in 1859, was commissioned on October 23, 1860. Stamps of Azerbaijan, 2013-1083

The Nerekend is fish market and sea food restaurant at the entrance of the Island. There is also 'FMarine Hotel Resort' in island.

Gallery

Pirallahi-rayonu1.jpg, Pirallahi District Pirallahi körpüsü.jpg, Pirallahi Bridge Pirallahi yolu.jpg, Pirallahi Road Pirallahi az.gif, Map of Pirallahi

References

History of the oil industry

Artyom town

External links

Great Soviet Encyclopedia entry

Weather reports for Pirallahı Island

{{Caspian Sea Islands Islands of Azerbaijan Islands of the Caspian Sea Absheron Archipelago