VILLA PETROLEA

Villa Petrolea is a historical district located in the Keshla municipality of Baku, Azerbaijan. Built by the Petroleum Production Company Nobel Brothers (also known as Branobel) in 1882, it served to accommodate workers of the company. It currently functions as a museum of the Nobel brothers in addition to housing a number of offices and businesses.

After the reconstruction, Villa Petrolea has been housing the Baku Nobel Oil Club, the International Conference Hall and the Nobel Brothers Museum, the first Nobel museum outside Sweden. The museum contains possessions of the Nobel family. Even though the interior of the mansion is not completely the same as it was prior to the departure of the family from Baku, some elements, such as fireplaces, were very precisely recreated.

On 9 October 1888, Emperor Alexander III of Russia visited Villa Petrolea with his family where he met the children of the recently deceased Ludvig Nobel, one of the founders of the settlement.

On 17 December 2010, Ludvig Nobel’s great-grandson Filip Nobel organized a special event marking the establishment of the Nobel International Fraternity Fund aimed at the development of sciences in Azerbaijan.