At some remote date — it may have been as far back as the time of Daniel the Prophet — the fire worshippers, the followers of Zoroaster, found here several oil springs on fire. The naphtha must have caught fire by accident, but they considered it a miracle, and through many centuries made pilgrimages to worship and adore the flames. Ultimately they built a temple, a square structure of brick with a dome and four chimneys, through which, in some ingenious manner, they conducted the natural gas which exhales from the naphtha springs, and thus were able to maintain four bright flames. The temple was in the centre of a large courtyard, inclosed by a high wall, in which were rooms for the accommodation of pilgrims. The gateway was monumental and above it rose a square tower about fifty feet in height, at the four corners of which were chimneys through which the gas was conducted in the same manner as at the temple within the inclosure, and the light could be seen for many miles in every direction. They called it "The Shrine of Grace."
Zoroaster, founder of the fireVorshippers, lived in Persia before the time of Cyrus the Great, and about six hundred years before Christ. He taught the existence of a Supreme Being who created two other mighty beings and imparted to them as much of his own nature as seemed good to him. One of them, Ormuzd, remained faithful and was regarded as the source of all good, while Ahriman rebelled, and became the author of all the evil upon the earth. The religious rites of the fire worshippers were exceedingly simple. They adored fire, light, and the sun as the emblems of Ormuzd, the source of all light and purity, and performed their worship on the tops of mountains, having neither temples, nor altars, nor images. Their priests were called Magi, whose learning was so celebrated that their name has been applied since to astrologers, prophets, necromancers, and all orders of magicians and enchanters.
The religion of Zoroaster continued to flourish after the introduction of Christianity and in the third century was the dominant faith in the East until the conquest of Persia by the Mohammedans in the seventh century compelled the greater number of the fire worshippers to renounce their faith. Those who refused fled to India, where they still exist under the name of Parsees, which is derived from Pars, an ancient name for Persia. At Bombay the Parsees are an enterprising, intelligent, and wealthy class of the population, and are distinguished for their integrity and business ability. They have numerous temples in which they worship fire as the symbol of divinity.
This temple stood at the village of Sourakhany, about ten miles from Baku. The site is now owned by the Kokovev Oil Company. It was abandoned about 1880. For a century or two before that date pilgrims came all the way from India, and the Parsee merchants of Bombay, famous for their riches and enterprise, furnished the money to maintain the fire and entertain the pilgrims.
Why the temple was abandoned and the lights were allowed to go out I have not been able to ascertain. The only reasonable explanation is that after that part of the world was wrested from Persia by the Russians something must have happened, or some regulation may have been introduced, which made it difficult or impossible to continue the ceremonials and maintain the pilgrimages. However that may have been, the form of worship and the nationality of the worshippers were gradually changed, until now Russians and Armenians adore the oil for the money it brings instead of for its symbolic significance.
The development of the petroleum industry was very slow and began late. The inhabitants of the old Persian city of Baku utilized the oil for light and fuel gas undisturbed imtil 1856, when a Russian named Kokreff and an Armenian named Mirsoeff obtained a concession from the Russian government to operate wells and refine the product. They had a monopoly for twenty years, but did a very small business, producing an insignificant quantity and a poor quality of burning fluid compared with the product of the present day.
In 1876 the concession was revoked and there was a rush of prospectors and speculators to this territory. Everybody who could raise enough money to drive a well did so, until to-day, within a radius of ten miles from the city of Baku, are 736 wells, producing more or less oil and belonging to almost as many people. The largest number are on a peninsula extending into the Caspian Sea, called Apocheron, between six and eight miles north of the city, with about one third as many at a place called Bibbi-Eybat, about three miles south.