The Soviet Oil Juggernaut: How It All Began 

I was in Azerbaijan at 1997. What a weird place it was. Oil oozing out of the ground, guys scooping it up and putting it DIRECTLY into their Lada 2 stroke cars. A half collapsing airport, huge holes in the runway, ak47 guards. An old lady with cataracts with a massive trash bag full of money begging. Men in an empty plateau near an old Soviet Chorine factory selling the scraps and piles of salvaged chlorine. electric toy ride on trucks and cars in the squares and parks…

Just saw someone criticizing, that the videos lack animations and such kind of things. Actually I pretty much like the simplicity how the videos are made. It just ppredisposes you for the essence of the video. Cheap animations don't make the content better. But before all it's amazing how much work and research is behind these essays. I very rarely write any comments, but felt obliged to say that I appreciate how everithing is done. Keep it up withe the good work. Nikola from Sofia BG

You’re hitting all cylinders. Keep up the great work. Thank you Asianometry!

Your soviet history videos are some of the most interesting out there!

"...[Lenin] asked the members not to make any written record of their discussion of this matter." Narrator: They did.

Mr. Asianometry, perhaps this might be an interesting subject for you to do a video on: China had a chronic problem with iodine deficiency to the point that 25% of Chinese people had a goitre, and 80% of the population suffering from some form of illness due to deficiency. In the Eighties, Australia sent experts across and lobbied the CCP to add iodine to their salt, thereby saving the lives of millions. This was part of a broader programme by the Australian government to 're-orient' itself towards Asia and engage with China. The same Prime Minister who lead the campaign was also the PM when the Tiananmen Square massacre happened. His name was Bob Hawke (he also held the world record for drinking a yard glass of beer the fastest - 11 seconds I believe) and he granted all Chinese students in Australia citizenship as he believed they would be at risk if they were to return to China, as they knew too much.

Felt like leaving us on a cliffhanger tonight??? Who hurt you? 😢

this channel never fails to be infinitely interesting... this topic is of a kind which other channels will pass without hesitation as "dry" and "uninteresting". But, not Asianometry.

Seriously flexing your research again John! This has to be an episode that you must be extremely proud of. From my understanding of history it was always the oil, not Moscow that was the reason for the absurd Barbarossa. It has been a while so I can't cite the historian that is best for that detail. This episode could have been made three times longer, such was the whirlwind. _Furiously Googles Scissors Crisis_

As a Romanian, I was completely unaware of that. Thanks for the great videos!

Easily one of the best channels on RU-vid. Great work man. I work in the semiconductor industry and I still learn a lot from those videos you do. Stuff like this is really impressive though because shows your breadth. Keep at it

As an Azerbaijani from Baku, I want to thank you for this video and spreading awareness of our small but rich with history and culture country 👏

Damn, these videos are too damn good, congratulations Jon, you just earned yourself another Patron!

Just discovered your channel and holy crap ive spent the last 2 hours binge watching your videos. Keep up the good work.

There are some more details of the early period. 1) Pipelines in Russia were not introduced by Nobel brothers. It's Mendeleev's research and calculations, following by his letters to the govenment. First decades of the Nobel brothers leadership in oil production were not genuinely due to the technology improvements, it was only a good amount of money spent on many wild and known oil fields. The way for oil mining and transportation by Nobels was just the same as it was in many decades - hand labour or animal traction, later they introduced carriages amd so on. Nobels didn't encounter transportation problems, it was just a matter of the cost of oil for people and industry - being a wealthy leader like Nobels in such a small business mainly based on primitive technology and few oil fields was quite easy. However, Mendeleev's calculations for profit and economy on the pipeline can be traced as a separate and very detailed chapter in the published full set of his works. He was in close touch with the govenment ministers and I am not sure, but it seems that somehow he had a proposal about taxes for oil extraction. 2) Despite many economical projects in Mendeleev's research, it was his famous quote as a chemist, that every Russian heard at school: "Oil is not a fuel, instead you can burn bank assignations in the stove" (meaning, that it is more logical to burn money, in terms of value). Of course, he was in tough relations with Nobel brothers and both sides had their patrons in the government. No doubt he wouldn't have been awarded the Nobel prize for his research in chemistry 🥲.

Would love to see Wendover cover the logistics of evacuating Baku to the Volga too

I can’t describe how refreshing it is to watch a video on oil without being preached to about global warming. Literally everyone else just talks about “they’re so evil because [insert your pet peeve here]” but you simply present what happened and let us come up with out own conclusions about what’s good and what’s bad. That presentation style is why I keep coming back here again and again. Keep up the great work!!

Stalin actually worked in the Baku fields as a young man and a young Putin went to Siberia to work on oil rigs

Another very interesting fact is that Stalin himself actually got his start in the Oil Industry. He gave speeches and radicalized people during the height of the tsarist/company-run age of Baku.

regarding liftwaffe strategic attacks on oil fields - there were couple of extensive Volga mining campaigns air-dropped mines are a thing, many were non-contact ones and had delay in number of ship to make trawlers pass and kill tankers extensive spotter network was created to track mine drops

I want more! What about the energy crisis on the 1970s and the later downfall of the Soviet Union? What about the post-Soviet Russian industry? Great Video!

One small point, if Case Blue succeeded the Soviet Black Sea fleet would not have had any ports to operate from.

John Astell is writing an amazing monograph on Soviet energy during the Great Patriotic War (WWII), including oil. I've been lucky to read a draft and I'm looking forward to see it published.

I really find this channel interesting. I have learned SO MUCH ! 👍

also discuss environmentally friendly habits in Soviet Union

Man, just when I thought you’ve covered it all, you come up with another amazing topic like this!!! Our minds love to learn about all the same kinds of things 🤩🤩🤩 Sometimes it feels like this channel was made just for me 🥰

@16:11 puh-LATE-able... that one got me good man. I love your vids. I hope you make them for years to come

Fantastic video! Any chance you can add English subtitles?

Such a high quality channel. Well done. 😁

Asianometry is doing a great job

I would like to say, this channel is amazing. I look forward to more on this in the future, if possible?

Loving these Russian history videos, keep them coming!

Amazing videos

I learn so much from this channel. This is such great content!

The quote attributed to Lenin @ 6:10, I've googled the whole thing but couldn't find it anywhere.

One small correction: The Germans didn't need Soviet oil to power their trains. They used coal-fired steam locomotives.

I love your rundown of these videos. Keep it up!

Great Video. Also, can you do a video on India's Coal or any resources (mostly in the states of Odisha Chattisgarh n Jharkhand ) ?

You do amazing work. I would never tell somebody that if they didn’t earn it. Your thinking and presentation are top shelf.

In the 1930s the great majority of intercity steam locomotives ran on coal, though some began shifting to diesel. This was true for UK, US, Germany, USSR, France, Japan, etc. Intracity trains, especially passenger ones, usually ran on electricity from thermal power plants (often coal-fueled) and hydroelectric, to reduce smoke emission in cities and subways. Conversion to diesel-electric is a post-WWII phenomenon. Though some navies began converting to oil in the early 1900s, the merchant fleet lagged behind. Even Titanic, the world's premier ocean liner, was coal-fired. This was true too for the US; its largest merchant line Sea-Land Service was using coal in the 1970s. One of the earliest fuel-fired merchant ships was a Russian one that sailed the Caspian Sea in the 1880s - oil was more plentiful there than coal. Since the 1960s, heavy fuel oil has been the king of marine fuels. Prior to that it was coal. Oil overtook coal to become the world's largest energy source in 1964. (I think some people make the mistake of thinking because oil today is so prevalent and vital it's been so since the early 1900s. This is not the case.) Re USSR oil production, it was the world's second largest producer in the mid 1930s. The completion of the first five-year plan and the start of the second one saw its domestic need for oil increase greatly. However, the world's number oil exporter during this era was Venezuela and not the #1 producer USA. American demand for oil was so great it was importing oil from Mexico in the '20s and Venezuela in the '30s until costly tariffs were applied. Venezuela used only about 7% of its domestic crude production, its crude was cheap to refine, and the gov't lightly taxed it, which made its oil the amongst the world's cheapest. BTW, of Germany's reserves on the eve of Barbarossa, about 20 million barrels had been captured in the low countries and France. I don't know why you claim Romania being one of Germany's largest suppliers of oil was 'unexpected'. Romania was one of Europe's largest producers and important supplier to France until the pipeline from Iraq to Tripoli, Lebanon was completed. Other European crude suppliers to Germany were Austria, Hungary, and Poland. Pre-War Germany was constrained by its lack of foreign exchange, so it endeavoured to conduct barter trade, such as with Mexico, by exchanging German industrial manufactures for oil. It also introduced a special trade currency called the Aski mark its used to pay for imports and that could only be used to purchase German-made goods by its trade partners. Such trade formed the bulk of Germany's imports and exports as it shifted trade to Central and Eastern Europe in the lead up to the War.

Now i know who these people are who google "i accidentally built a shelf". Nobels Brother: "i accidentally built an oil empire"

romashkino field is over 4000 sq/km? wow thats a lot of oil there.

Thanks for great video from Baku ❤

You should do a video on the natural gas of Russia and how The West refused to help Russia with the technology to store and transport LNG. The Russians eventually figured it out on their own.

Both “ch” in Chechnya pronounced the same, as in “chair”

Actually, I wish asianometry do a program on soviet industrialization of 1920's-30's and five year plans, esp. iron and steel production (magnitogorsk etc), chemical industries, agriculture and electrification.. I have a nagging feeling that the sovet russia would be economically as successful as china were ww2 not destroyed the westen half of the country and killed 30 million of its people.. And after that, the cold war played its part..

I like my phone as I like the chassis of a self-propelled howitzer - Samsung .

You forgot to mention why Baku oil production had dropped significantly in 1905! ;)

Yes!!! Finally reporting on the energy market. Please please please go deep asianmetry! We need more transparency to the convoluted oil market

The sinclair logo.... are so cool.

Wow. Had no idea Nobel was active in oil industry. Always thought it was just explosives.

These are great listening and well researched by my eyes!

Excellent video.

1:16 The painting at 1:16 that is labeled 'Baku, 1861' looks highly suspicious to me. In the background, two large 1960s-style office towers, one of which has an antenna rising from the roof. Are my eyes cheating me?

Really hope there is a follow on video which extrapolates this conclusion section and looks at the late Soviet and Post Soviet Russian Federation Oil AND Gas Industry.... especially the role drop in oil prices played in the fall of the USSR

16:52 Wasn't Yugoslavia neutral? They traded with both sides, but kept themselves independent.

No mention of the oil industry in Siberia?

Few now know, the greater part of Alfred Nobel's fortune came from his investment in Russian oil.

Didn't the Rothchilds have a large stake in the Caucasus oil fields? I have no source for that, I just vaguely remember it, but if I'm actually correct I'm surprised you didn't mention it

Anthony Sutton documented Western involvement in the Soviet oil fields over the decades 1920s-1960s very well.

Good points.

Good video

I think it's the narration (not that it's bad, just not as animated as other channels) or my lack of interest in the topics of the videos, but I often find myself skipping videos from this channel. On the flip-side, the videos come off as well-researched. Good luck growing your channel.

Great video

Very interesting

cheers

Reason that Russia invaded Crimea is because on late 2010th western gas production companies discovered a huge amount of natural gas in northern Crimea. Gas fields so big, that it would be enough to get rid of dependency to russian natural gas.

3:05 “a division between the owners and the bureaucrats managing the company” - could you expand on that? The Managerial Revolution as a form of “seizing the means of production” in capitalist economies is very significant and overlooked.

I forgot to mention the other day, that something is different with this audio and voice, feels easier to listen.

Daniel Yergin, "The Prize"...

during the video there are two interesting photos, russian tanks circa mid thirties and german tanks late thirties. the former are offensive and the latter defensive. and why? the length of the cannon.

This was a VERY dense video! I would need to look up sources for those many events You sometimes mention only shortly (e.g. Scissors crisis or the oil statistics) ... and it is not at all easy to find these sources; googling for "Russian oil production" will lead you to _modern_ statistics since 1991, not to Tsarist Imperial Russia.

@Asianometry 16:54 (Map not dated so:) Yugoslavia was not a "Soviet aligned nation". Neither was it NATO. It was a founding member of Non-aligned movement. It tried to avoid being a puppet to bullying scumbags on both sides.

Thank you

Interesting video ! Especially worthfull to understand some historical backgrounds in regard to current Ukraine war, which is continuation of the competition on ownership of south east Europe and west Asia. And Oil and Gas is essential in political relations to caucasus, central asia and Iran up today.

The old guns and oil ties. Vital Education in the deliberately denied history of Pirate Empires. Excellent Teaching.

Ww1 & WW2 was fought over oil and communism.

Not a breach of Godwin's law - compliance!

@Asianometry Can you please make a Video about: The Evolution of Drones and Drone Warfare 🙂

No mention of Fred Koch?

For German words with Ws (like luftwaffe), you can pronounce them as Vs - it'll sound much better!

Ho Jon, I seriously love your content and how you present it. With the US Semi Conductor act being passed, what is going to be the effect for china? What will and won't they be able to manufacture, eg cars, cell phones, game consoles ets. Are we going to see china exporting products with out microprocessors that will be installed in the country of sale. I'd love to see your take on what the future holds. Many thanks

Fantastic vid

Great video, keep them up. Just one point, at 3:45 you mention that Shell et all wanted to invade Baku, but weren't supported by the British government. In fact, the British government was heavily involved in the collapse of the Ottoman empire, and looking to profit from the Russian breakdown by expanding its control of Persia. As for Baku, it sent Dunsterforce to support the independence movements and prevent Ottoman incursion, but its retreat and the subsequent crushing of these independent states was followed by the Armenian genocide and the occupation of Baku by the Soviets. I'm not sure what Shell was doing at the time, but it was BP - at the time, Burmah Oil and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company - that led the colonial expansion in the middle east. BP (APOC) was 51% owned by the British government, as it supplied oil to the Royal Navy. Interestingly, the chairman of Burmah oil at the time of the Iranian revolution in 1979, which was quickly followed by the nationalisation of Burmah's oil interests in Iran, was Denis Thatcher, husband of the Prime Minister. Although since then Iran has paid compensation to BP, and BP accepted it as full payment for its assets, Britain still maintains an aggressive stance towards Iran, sailing its warships up and down the Persian Gulf, just waiting for an opportunity to start a war to recover its old position as colonial master.

Was it not the father of the Koch brothers that assisted the Soviet Union in some advances when they discovered the resource??

10:18 In the words of Comrade Lenin, "Communism = Soviet power + electrification of the country". Hardworking Soviet pupils used his wisdom to derive more mathematical lemmas, such as "Soviet power = Communism - electrification of the country", "Electrification = Communism - Soviet power", etc.

you don't talk about oil production w/o using barrels as the unit not metric tonnes. 7 barrels per metric ton. Why because you mention Standard Oil, commodities markets speculated on barrel prices not metric tonnes.

Thanks, ver y good channel. But Operation Peak (When Allies wanted to bomb Baku) was BEFORE Operation Barbarossa: Germany used oil from Baku when attacked France.

Excellent 👍 Interesting how the Soviet union supplied and supplies half the energy to Europe.. Yet was considered an " enemy"? Today we see similarities

Baku was the capital of Azerbaijan's democratic republic before being captured by the soviets. It was new established country in 1918 and lasted roughly 2 years before soviet invasion, thanks.

6:10 where did Lenin say this i demand from the channel owner to show where Lenim did said that.

A video on US chip restrictions on China and how they will impact China's chip, AI and overall technological advances?

3:31 "Shell, and the other big Britisch oil companies" Nice touch 😆

Very informative and interesting content. Chapeau bas 🫡

Watch the BBC series on Reilly, Ace of spies, from the 1980’s.

Great video 🎉

Didn't Koch industries get started by dealing with the Soviets in the 1930s?

Freedom didn't reached there at that time 😂

not "Romanian oil" again ... Romania provided like 10% of the oil the Germans consumed during the war. What Romania did have was sweet crude (oil with less Sulfur) and refineries (first kerosene refinery in the world operated in Romania and Bucharest was the first city in the world lit with kerosene lamps in 1857), but the local production of crude was low. It is remembered only because there was a big scandal during the 1880s when Standard Oil, the British, the Germans, the Austrians and others were competing over it, while Romania (a very small country at the time) was doing its best to extract as little as possible because at the time oil was supposed to run out in 20 years :-) worldwide. The oil refineries in Romania were bombed not because they were important, but because they were close enough to Egypt and later Italy, where the Allies controlled airfields.

*Despite the financial instability all over the world, I’m so excited I’ve been earning $45,000 from my $10,000 investment every 10days...*