In 1594, the world's first oil wells were dug by hand in Baku, Azerbaijan. In 1848, it was in Baku that modern drilling was born. In 2007, we're all feeling the environmental and political repercussions of petroleum dependence-perhaps none of us more directly than the people of Azerbaijan itself. Crucial to our daily lives but rarely addressed in Western media, the region has long suffered exploitation from abroad and corruption from within. With audacity and wit, a team of Czech filmmakers investigates and records the effects of a newly constructed pipeline on the former “garden of the Kremlin,” as well as the impassioned response by displaced and impoverished workers determined to defend their human rights. Mixing surreal shots of the poisoned landscape, interviews with a broad cross-section of Azeris, early Soviet archival footage, and outlandish pro-pipeline propaganda videos, the film makes visible the hidden costs of a gallon of gas.