Nargin Island (Boyuk-Zira Island), known in Azerbaijan as the “Island of Hell” or “Snake Island” in the Caspian Sea, is located in Baku Bay, ten kilometers south of the city, in a very small area – about three square kilometers.In the 17th century, the Russians, especially the Cossacks, renamed most of the islands belonging to the Baku archipelago. In 1719, Russian Emperor Peter I gave the island its name because it resembled the island of Nargin in the Gulf of Finland.
Known as the site of various snakes, the island has been turned into a death camp by Russia.During the First World War, first by Tsarist Russia and then by the Soviet Union, more than 10,000 people captured from Turkish-Muslim villages were brutally tortured on the island.
Documents about the forcible hostage-taking of Turkish-Muslim children aged three years and adults up to 80 years old from Anatolian villages in the battles of Sarikamish 1914-1915, as well as photographs of people who died of hunger, disease, snake bites and mental illness, appear in various Russian archives.
Some of the tens of thousands of prisoners captured on Nargin Island were rescued by Azerbaijanis. In this regard, the activities of the Muslim Charitable Society, Haji Zeynalabdin Tagiyev, Ismail bey Safaraliev, Murtuza Mukhtarov and Azhdar bey Ashurbekov should be especially noted.Although the Caucasian Islamic Army, which entered Baku in September 1918, freed the prisoners, the bloody history of Nargin prison did not end there. After the seizure of power in Baku by the Bolsheviks in 1920, a number of Azerbaijani statesmen and public figures, activists and victims of Stalinist repression were shot on the islands of Nargin and Bulla. After the restoration of the state independence of Azerbaijan in 1991, its name was restored and renamed “Boyuk-Zira”.
