ATDTDA 751 (once more)

[Ya Sam]

ATDTDA 751

“Batumi, where you could smell the lemon groves before you saw them”

At the southern end of Georgia's Black Sea Coastline lies the seaside resort of Batumi, the capital of the province of Adjara, the warmest and wettest place in Georgia. Under Turkish rule in the 17th Century, Batumi was famous for its slave market, while in the 19th century under the Russians it was a free port. Today, apart from the commercial port area, there is a wide beachfront, the old town, rundown mansions and wooden houses, shady avenues, parks and outdoor cafes. A pleasant place for a one or two night stop. There are some lovely coastal drives outside Batumi, with citrus and tea plantations, and subtropical vegetation .

http://www.silkroadandbeyond.co.uk/batumi.html

Batumi is the main port of Georgia and the capital of Adjara. Due to the subtropical climate, palm trees, lemon trees and orange trees can be found all over the city.

http://www.vacationstogo.com/cruise_port/Batumi__Georgia.cfm

dukhans  taverns in Caucasus
But also
Dukhan is a big oil field extending over an area of approximately 80 km by 8 km. and is located over 80 kms to the West of Doha. Dukhan Field encompasses four reservoirs from North to South - Khatiyah, Fahahil and Jaleha/Diyab, three of which are oil resrvoirs , and fourth contains non associated gas . Oil and gas are separated in four main degassing stations which are continuously manned namely Khatiyah North, Khatiyah Main, Fahahil Main and Jaleha. Unmanned satellite stations are Fahahil North and Fahahil South, while Khatiyah South is now a manned station. The Diyab satellite station at the South end of the field has no process facilities and the total oil production is sent to Jaleha station for processing. Stabilized crude oil is transported through pipeline to Mesaieed port about 100 km East of Dukhan. 

http://www.qp.com.qa/qp.nsf/web/bc_dukhan

Baku
Located on the southern shore of the Apsheron peninsula, Azerbaijan's capital was founded 1,500 years ago. The first written reference to Baku dates from 885, although archaeologists have found remains of a settlement predating by several centuries the birth of Christ. The city became important after an earthquake destroyed Shemakha and the of the 12th century and the Shirvanshah, Ahistan I, made Baku the new capital. There are a few theories about the origin of the name, the most widely known being that Baku comes from bad kube, meaning "city of winds".  [What, another “Windy City”?!]
The climate is sunny and arid, with gale-force winds that sweep through on occasion, caused by masses of polar air. Baku is located on the western shore of the Caspian Sea and is Azerbaijan's largest city, with wonderful beaches, spas and a striking setting on the salty Caspian Sea. 
The basis of Baku's economy is petroleum. The existence of petroleum has been known since the 8th century. By the 15th century oil for lamps was obtained from surface wells. Commercial exploitation began in 1872, and by the beginning of the 20th century the Baku oil field was the largest in the world. Towards the end of the 20th century much of the land's petroleum had been exhausted, and drilling had extended into the sea. Baku ranks as one of the largest centres for the production of oil industry equipment. The World War II Battle of Stalingrad was fought to determine who would have control of the Baku oil fields. Fifty years before the battle, Baku supplied half of the world's oil production. 
In recent years oil has made the city affluent again, but Baku is still a conservative place. You don't see many women covering their heads, but you'll notice many small revealing details e.g. ladies go to the toilet for a cigarette, couples don't kiss in public... 
Today's Baku is really three cities rolled into one: the old town (icheri shekher), the boomtown and the Soviet-built town. 
http://www.azerb.com/az-baku.html

Baku oil fields

http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid=2639165&epmid=1&partner=Google

http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid=3296459&epmid=1&partner=Google

Azerbaijan’s oil history

During its early Oil Boom, between 1885 and 1920, Azerbaijan benefited greatly from the expertise of well-known chemists and geologists from Europe and Russia. Baku's rich oil barons sought out the best advice that the scientific world had to offer, seeking recommendations from important figures like German chemist Carl Engler and Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleyev. As a result, innovative new techniques such as rotary drilling and gaslift were tested for the first time in Azerbaijan.

http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai102_folder/102_articles/102_oil_chronology.html

“skies of hell, boiling red and black” 
Cf. “the first glimpse of Jeshimon was like a religious painting of hell” p. 210

Burning oil fields
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/100best/storyD_story.html

Rugrider ?

“actuarially speaking” 
Through their knowledge of statistics, finance, and business, actuaries assess the risk of events occurring and help create policies that minimize risk and its financial impact on companies and clients. One of the main functions of actuaries is to help businesses assess the risk of certain events occurring and formulate policies that minimize the cost of that risk. For this reason, actuaries are essential to the insurance industry. 
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos041.htm

Bnito oil tankers
>From Pynchon Wiki
In 1870s-80s Nobels Brothers (Cf page 444: Nobel brothers) dominated distribution of oil within the Russian Empire. The Rothschilds decided to take on the Nobels and in 1886 founded their own oil company: BNITO. To break the Nobels' monopoly on distribution of oil, The Bnito Co. won a contract to transport Bnito oil east of the Suez Canal and developed the tanker, a ship specifically designed to carry oil in storage tanks built into the hull as opposed to just placing barrels of oils in the hold. (Some historians said the exploitations of Baku's oil were how did the Nobel Brothers afford a peace prize and Rothschilds acquire their bank.)

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_748-767

Krasnovodsk
lake port in the Republic of Turkmenistan, in Balkan Welayat, on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. It is located 270 km (170 mi) east of and across the Caspian from Baku, Azerbaijan, in an area of desert that lies below sea level. Although a fort had existed on the site since 1717, Balkan was founded as a town in 1869, and it assumed importance when it became the western terminus of the Trans-Caspian Railroad in 1896. The town lacks a supply of fresh water, which must be imported or desalinized from the salty Caspian Sea. Balkan is an important gateway to central Asia and is a center for the import and export of a variety of products. Population (1999) 70,000.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_762508966/Krasnovodsk.html

Trans-Caspian Railroad
transportation line linking the countries of Central Asia to one another and with the nations to the west. Built in the late 19th cent., the line begins at Turkmenbashi (Krasnovodsk) on the Caspian Sea and passes through Ashgabat, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Tashkent. There are branches to the Fergana Valley. The Trans-Caspian line connects at Arys with the more recent Turkistan-Siberia RR and the Kazalinsk line to Orenburg. It was formerly also known as the Central Asiatic RR.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/tr/TransCas.html

Qara Qum or Kara Kum

Sandy desert occupying some 90% of the republic of Turkmenistan; area about 310,800 sq km/120,000 sq mi. The Kara-Kum lies to the east of the Caspian Sea, between the Aral Sea to the north and the Iranian border to the south. It is separated from the Kyzyl-Kum desert by the Amu Darya River. The desert is crossed by the Trans-Caspian railway and the Kara-Kum Canal, the largest irrigation canal in the world. The area has rich oil, gas, and sulphur deposits, all of which are being increasingly exploited. Air temperatures of over 50°C have been recorded here.

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0014001.html

Here is a collection of photographs about the “Mysteries of Central Asia”, one of these is called  “On camels in Kara Kum”

http://www.schicklerart.com/auto_exh/Gzel_002


railroad-metaphysics

See also Lebedev’s linking of railways to the Apocalypse in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot

Lebedev, a self-styled interpreter of the Apocalypse, is goaded into an attack upon the spiritual vacuum of modern society: "All of this as a whole is damned, sir? The whole spirit of these last few centuries of ours, taken as a whole with its scientific and practical emphasis, is perhaps indeed damned, sir! " (6) Modern man in his relentless drive to satisfy the demands of reason, egoism and material necessity has lost the sense of spiritual well-being to be derived from an ideal which provides moral and metaphysical certainty. Modern man has no faith; only science, industry, commerce and capital. Lebedev complains that it is folly to try to erect a material fortune upon a basis of spiritual poverty, and directs this particular criticism at contemporary socialists with their "carts bringing bread to the whole of humanity, without a moral basis for this action. " (a quotation that combines a well-known statement by the Russian socialist, Alexander Herzen, with Christ's injunction that man should not live by bread alone) (7) In a deliciously irreverent anecdote Lebedev goes on to tell of a twelfth century man who, after twenty years of cannibalism, confessed and went to the stake for his sins. What was it, asks Lebedev, that drove him to confession despite the tortures that awaited him? 
There must have been something much stronger than the stake and the flames, stronger even than the habits of twenty years? There must have been an idea stronger than all misfortune, famine, torture, plague, leprosy and all that hell which mankind could not have endured without that binding idea which guided men's hearts and enriched the waters of life. Show me something resembling that force in our age of vice and railways . . . Show me an idea that binds mankind today with even half the force as in those centuries. . . And don't try to intimidate me with your prosperity, your riches, the infrequency of famine today and your rapid means of communication! There is more wealth now, but less strength; the binding idea is no more; everything has grown soft; everything and everyone is over-coddled! ... (8) 

http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/DS/03/043.shtml

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