Norwich bulletin., 1921-08-30
IN THE DAYS NEWS
Baku

The skies above Baku are once more illuminated by the eternal fires of the worlds most famous oil region. Near the spot where zoresstrian or Farsi priests guarded the sacred flames whio- burned for more than a score of cen turies, eighteen mo6srn wells are now ahlaze according to press dispatches. What this great natural waste means is brought out in the following bulletin from the Washington, D. C., headquar- ters of the National Geographic Society
 If American relief work is inaugurated
 in South Russia and if arrangements can be made with the new governments of the Caucasus, the race between charity and starvation may be run largely with Baku oil" says the bulletin. Already the white nights of north Russia are beginning to wane and the ice which coats the NeYa early in the faH will soon be creeping down the queen of Rus sian rivers and stopping transportation CT the one life line of commerce upon which large scale relief work on the lower Volga can depend
 'Frhe iron rails of Russia have disin- tegrated with neglect and traffic. The great Russian waterway will be open | for at least two months more. And the 1 fuel long used in the Volga steamers 1 and tugs is petroleum and it's by-produets i principally n4asut, a thick residue from 1 the refneries. Fuel and food are intetfn- ately connected in any plan of Rus sian relief on the lower Volga and the Wastage of petroleum in Baku is a mat 1 ter of deep concern.
 Before the time of the Saracens, Bak,- was noted for its natural gas and sacred 1 fires. In Surakhani, where from the days of Zoroaster to 1879. the coloriess flames of naphtha gas were never extinguished.
 a temple of the fireWorshippers built il the time of Marco Polo and restored l in the time of Shakespeare can still be seen although the lighting of naphtha igas is no longer allowed here on the l waters of the Caspian at Bibi Eybat Fireworshippers on pilgrimage to Baku in the days just preceding the American Revolution had the tradition that the fires iof Surakhani had begun to burn sooH after the flood and that they would con tinue to burn until the end of the world. i When, in 636, A, D., the Arab hosts appeared in Persia and fireworshippers tbecane Moslems under the sword of the Prophet, large numbers of Zoroastrians 1 fled to India. Their great Tombs Of Si-
 fence on the slopes of Malabar hill i, Bombay, where loathsome vultures await their gruesome opportunity as consumers of eorpses, stand as present day remind
 
 r removed the Parsis from their ancestral ? homes and placed them in control o modern finance at the gateway to India
 "Fhe modern city of Baku is com ibinatien of the new and the old, of tn, Q East and the West. Since the establish ! Rlent of the Azerbaijan republic and tn, selection of Baku as it's capital, som q changes have been made But in genera ! Baku is what 1t was before the war.
 Tn the spring of 1918 there was sharI I fighting between the Christians and tn 7 Fartars for control of the region. At tf1i time large part Of the Tatar sectioI q was destroyed by shell fire from the Gas ' plan. The romantic Kis-KaIe or Virgil = Tower which the Tatars used as an ob . servation post still bears the marks o shell fire which however failed to do Sc
 Yious damage to Byzantine walls Tn e ancient walls Of the old Tatar eitade
 bear pock mark lines which join tn