10 July 2025

Located within Nardaran is the famous Sea Breeze project created by Emin Aghalarov, an Azerbaijani-Russian businessperson and pop star who decided to build a resort and residential housing complex in the shape of a cruise liner along the shore of the Caspian Sea. Aghalarov is directly connected to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, having been married to Aliyev’s daughter, Leyla Aliyeva, from 2005 to 2015...

Given the high-profile nature of the project, Nardaran residents could not understand why drinkable water consistently disappeared every spring and summer, especially given that money was being spent from the state budget annually to provide water to the resort.

However, public procurement documents show that rather than fulfilling the water needs of the resort and its surroundings, funding has instead been transferred to family members of officials or their close associates, leaving local residents out to dry.

Public procurement documents from 2023–2024 show that three companies — Nardaran Invest LLC, the Euro-Asian Construction Corporation EVRASCON OJSC, and the Turkish Eren Construction Industry and Trade Joint Stock Company — implemented a project to construct the Jeyranbatan–Mashtaga–Nardaran water pipeline along with a reservoir on behalf of the state agency Azersu, which is in charge of organising state policy and strategy in regards to water supply and sanitation services. The amount of the tender was around ₼25 million ($15 million).

At the same time, a second project was also announced to build a waste management plant. According to public procurement records, ₼15 million ($8.8 million) from the state budget allocated to the Sea Breeze resort was paid to the same three companies used to construct the Pirshaghi–Bilga sewage collection plant...

...only the Euro-Asian Construction Corporation, EVRASCON OJSC, along with a fourth company known as Ensol LLC, actually implemented the construction of the water pipeline...

A separate expert... believes that if the government did not want corruption, ‘it should be interested in disclosing the reports and financial statements of its four companies, at least for six months, for three months. And the finances should have been transparent. Everyone should have known that what they were doing was supposed to be public procurement and competition’...

According to the state agency, the Unified Water Supply Service of Large Cities, ‘the recently implemented Nardaran Reservoir project will help provide centralised drinking water to coastal areas, as well as residential and garden areas...

Despite the construction work, local residents say nothing has changed — for 30 years, they have failed to receive adequate drinking water...