Gobustan & Mud Volcanoes Tour – Half-Day History & Nature Experience

Gobustan & Mud Volcanoes Tour (Half day)

Gobustan & Mud Volcanoes tour is a half-day tour designed for tourists and visitors who are interested in the Stone Age period of humanity, UNESCO’s World Heritage, and history. Also, tourists will have a chance to see a group of mud volcanoes and the world’s 1st industrially drilled oil well. The tour lasts 4-5 hours and is run in the 1st part of the day.

HIGHLIGHTS

Mud Volcanoes

The Gobustan tour starts after picking up the guests from the hotel. Our first destination is Gobustan National Park. When we reach the Gobustan area, we will visit the Mud Volcanoes.

Home to nearly a third of the world’s mud volcanoes, Azerbaijan features a messy, bubbling, and sometimes explosive landscape. Mud volcanoes are closely associated with hydrocarbon and petrochemical stores underground, so gas tries to escape to the surface. A few of these gas leaks are constantly on fire, shooting small perpetual flames into the air, and some believe that these perpetual flames are strongly connected to the appearance of the Zoroastrian religion in Azerbaijan some 2,000 years ago.

Every 20 years or so, one of these mud/gas volcanoes will ignite deep below the surface and create a massive explosion. While generally not dangerous to people, as they are far outside of most city centers, it is believed that six shepherds and over 2,000 sheep were killed by a mud volcano in Bozdagh, Azerbaijan.

Gobustan Museum and Rocks

After coming back from the Mud Volcanoes, we visit the Gobustan Rock Art (open-air museum).

Gobustan State Reserve, located west of the settlement of Gobustan, about 40 miles southwest of the center of Baku, was established in 1966 when the region was declared a national historical landmark of Azerbaijan in an attempt to preserve the ancient carvings, mud volcanoes, and gas-stones in the region.

Gobustan State Reserve is very rich in archeological monuments; the reserve has more than 6,000 rock carvings, which depict primitive people, animals, battle scenes, ritual dances, bullfights, boats with armed oarsmen, warriors with lances in their hands, camel caravans, pictures of sun and stars, on average dating back to 5,000-20,000 years.

The World’s 1st Industrially Drilled Oil Well

Located in the Bibi-Heybat area, near Baku, this site is recognized as the location of the world’s first industrially drilled oil well. In 1846, under the direction of the Russian Empire’s mining authorities, an oil well was drilled here to a depth of approximately 21 meters using mechanical drilling methods.

This historic achievement took place decades before the famous oil boom in Pennsylvania and marked an important milestone in the development of the modern oil industry. Baku subsequently became one of the world’s major oil-producing centers, attracting investors, engineers, and oil companies from across the globe.

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