In the nineteenth century, Russian influence over daily life in Azerbaijan was less pervasive than that of indigenous religious and political elites and the cultural and intellectual influences of Persia and Turkey. During most of the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire extracted commodities from Azerbaijan and invested little in the economy. However, the exploitation of oil in Azerbaijan at the end of the nineteenth century brought an influx of Russians into Baku, increasing Russian influence and expanding the local economy reserves.
Azerbaijan possesses fertile agricultural lands, rich industrial resources, including considerable oil reserves, and a relatively developed industrial sector. Utilization of those resources in the Soviet period, however, was subject to the usual distortions of centralized planning. In the early 1990s, economic output declined drastically. The major factors in that decline were the deterioration of trade relations with the other former Soviet republics, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, erosion of consumer buying power, and retention of the ruble alongside the national currency. In 1994 the economy remained heavily dependent on the other former republics of the Soviet Union, especially Russia.
The official language of Azerbaijan is Azeri, a Turkic language of the Altaic family that is closely related to the Turkish and Turkmen languages. Azeri originally developed in the Arabic script, but in the 1920s a Latin (or Roman) alphabet was introduced. In 1939 the Soviet regime mandated the use of the Cyrillic alphabet, the script of the Russian language. After Azerbaijan gained independence, the government abandoned the Cyrillic alphabet and adopted a Turkish version of the Latin script. Russians and Armenians primarily use their own native languages.
Most adults in Azerbaijan can read and write. The country's high adult literacy rate was achieved during the Soviet period, when an extensive, state-funded education system was developed. The first eight years of education are compulsory, but most students complete the full ten-year program of basic education, and many choose to continue their education at secondary or vocational schools. Baku is the seat of most of the country's institutes of higher education, including Baku State University (founded in 1919 during Azerbaijan's brief initial period of independence), Azerbaijan Technical University (1950), and Azerbaijan State Petroleum Academy (1920).