COP29 Climate Summit Being Held in Petrostate Where People Bathe Their Nude Bodies in Crude Oil

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Fossil Fools

While attending the United Nations’ COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, a New York Times reporter decided to try a time-honored local custom: bathing his entire nude body in crude oil.

As the newspaper reports, the same oil that helped fuel the Soviet victory over the Nazis has propelled Azerbaijan to petrostate status. Its reserves stand out from those elsewhere in the world because the oil does not burn the skin and is said to possess healing properties.

NYT Moscow bureau chief Anton Troianovski describes how local scientists and historical explorers have promoted the benefits of oil from the Naftalan region for thousands of years, claiming it can heal wounds and relieve aches and pains.

“Near the Georgian border there is a spring from which gushes a stream of oil in such abundance that a hundred ships may load here at once,” Marco Polo wrote in the 13th century. “This oil is not good to eat, but it is good for burning and as a salve for men and camels affected with itch or scab.”

Oil Wellness

To experience these reputed benefits firsthand, Troianovski traveled four hours from Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, during the UN’s COP29 summit to Naftalan—a resort town now home to dozens of oil spas.

“[The oil] crept into every crevice of my submerged body and every fold of my skin,” he wrote. “It smothered the hair on my limbs, making me look a little like an animal stuck in an oil spill.”

Once in the bath, Troianovski discovered that the oil felt surprisingly slippery rather than thick and sticky. He described the sensation as “otherworldly”—even “netherworldly”—before being told to stand after exactly ten minutes, using a wall handle for support.

“Then,” Troianovski wrote, “came an attendant to scrape it all off.”

Using a long shoehorn, the attendant removed the oil, then patted him dry with oversized paper towels and handed him a washcloth for his private areas.

Back at the climate conference, Troianovski visited the site of the world’s first industrial oil well to reflect on the experience. Today located in a Baku parking lot beside a swimming pool, the rig still pumps the same finite, profitable resource he had just bathed in.

“Take it out, sell it,” an oil rig worker named Khalid told him. “It’s like God sent this to us.”

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