The autobiographical account of a man full of mysteries - a Jew from Baku on the Caspian Sea who became a Muslim. Essad Bey was a world-renowned expert on the Orient and a fascinatingly colorful bestselling author in his time. Azerbaijan and the region around the Caspian Sea have been in the spotlight of global interests since the oil boom of the mid-19th century, serving as a strategic playing field for colonial ambitions and a clandestine target of Hitler's imperial plans in the East. Essad Bey's autobiographical account takes us back to the time around World War I and presents the local actors, the first oil millionaires, as well as the ethnic, religious, and political conflicts among Azerbaijanis, Armenians, and Persians, Bolsheviks and monarchists, Christians, Jews, and Muslims surrounding the early crude oil and naphtha industry. This unfolds against the backdrop of a world history that plays out in the few streets.