Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, sits on the western coast of the Caspian Sea, atop the huge oil reserves that the world powers have vied for since the fall of the Soviet Union. Baku has a long history of oil and oil production. It was one of the early centers of the Zoriastrian religion, the religion of fire worshippers: natural gas flames burst from the ground throughout the area. A Zoriastrian temple still remains in Baku. In the late nineteenth century such industrialists as Alfred Nobel made their oil fortunes in Baku. Later, Stalin built an island nearby of causeways for oil research and development, now called Neft Baslani (Oily Rocks), to fuel the Soviet war effort. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Neft Baslani has fallen into disrepair. Thirty kilometers from end to end, it now stands as a crumbling monument to the end of the Soviet Empire. Likewise, the early oil wells on the outskirts of the city of Baku sit in disrepair. Cows wander through the oil fields, refugee children from the Armenian-Azeri conflict play nearby. While western nations vie for Caspian Oil and the rights to build pipelines to the outside world, the old oil infrastructure rusts and rots.