Murtuza Mukhtarov
From a poor village to the heights of the oil business: a self-taught engineer, inventor, philanthropist and a man who would not give up his home — even at the cost of his life.
A self-made man
Murtuza Mukhtarov is one of the most striking and tragic figures of oil-boom Baku. Born into a poor family in the village of Amirjan, with neither education nor capital, he made his way from a simple worker on the oil fields to a famous drilling master and the owner of his own firm.
A self-taught engineer, he obtained patents for drilling equipment, and his 'Baku Drilling System' became known far beyond Azerbaijan. Having grown rich, Mukhtarov did not forget where he came from: he built schools and mosques, gave scholarships, helped his fellow countrymen. The beautiful Palace of Happiness bears his name. This site is about his life, his deeds and his tragic end.
A fate in numbers
He began with a pick in his hands on an oil field and ended as the owner of a palace still called the Palace of Happiness today.
An age that grew out of oil
Baku at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was a forest of wooden derricks, smoke, gushers of oil and swift fortunes. Among those who rose in this age by their own labour and wit was Murtuza Mukhtarov — a man whose life became a symbol of both the rise and the tragic close of oil-boom Baku.
Read the biographyThis site is cultural and educational. The atmospheric images of oil-boom Baku were created with AI and do not depict specific people; some dates are given from available sources.