Gallery: For These Post-Soviet Nations, Big Oil Offers Hope and Fear
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Untitled (Atyrau), Kazakhstan, 2012. A fence surrounds Renaissance Hotel in Atyrau, a new oil capital of Kazakhstan. A tiny fishermen town started its rise since the giant Kashagan oil field was discovered nearby. The inhabitants of the town live with both fears of possible ecological catastrophe and hopes for improved life standards.
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Woman with her mud, Kazakhstan, 2012. Mud reserves are ending because the source is now the territory of Kashagan oil refinery plant.
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Nobel's Village, Azerbaijan, 2010. The village was built by Ludwig Nobel for oil workers at Pirallahi island. Currently it is abandoned and slowly being submerged by the rising sea.
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House of Kadjar, Azerbaijan, 2012. Youngest member of the Kadjar family---who claims to be the royal family in Azerbaijan---stares at copies of ancient Iranian paintings in the family house in Baku.
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Kenderli, Kazakhstan, 2011. A woman at her house in an abandoned soviet holiday camp. The camp is being demolished and soon will become a luxury resort.
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Untitled (Quba), Azerbaijan, 2011. Soviet-era books are collected for trash in a former library in Quba. The alphabet in the country was changed from Cyrillic to Turkish after independence. The history of the country is now being rewritten, so most of Soviet books are not needed.
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Museum of Cosmos, Ashgabad, Turkmenistan, 2013. The capital of Ashgabad holds five Guinness World Records; the latest is boasting "the most white marble-clad buildings" in the world.
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The Dream, Azerbaijan, 2010. A model house at an Institute for Peace and Democracy settlement in Baku.
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Azerbaijan, 2010. An official of Narimanabad village in his office.
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Untitled (Balkanabad), Turkmenistan, 2011. A new stadium is built in line with the policy of “Health and Happiness” that started in Turkmenistan together with new "Era of Supreme Happiness."
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Azerbaijan, 2010. A fisherman gathers his nets in a poaching hut at Pirallahi island. As no other work exists outside the capital, people living along the sea are turning to the poaching. The Caspian Sea is overfished for years, and the sturgeon are currently close to complete extinction.
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Ruins of the Buzovna resort near Baku, Azerbaijan, 2011. The restaurant was closed and the beach is now out of bounds as it appeared to be too close to the walls of president Aliyev's holiday house.
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Family house, Azerbaijan, 2010. Internally displaced people from Karabakh have lived in cardboard homes at an abandoned industrial factory in Baku for the last twenty years. They have never received aid from the government despite managing to build new life in these inhumane conditions.
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Untitled (Narimanabad), Azerbaijan, 2011. Birds pass by a former boating spot in Narimanabad, a remote fishing village on the Caspian Sea. Gas to the village has been cut off since independence, and most people live by poaching.
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Koshkar Ata, Aqtau, Kazakhstan, 2012. Migrant workers build luxury mausoleums for families of the newly rich at Koshkar Ata, ancient City of the Dead.
