The Nobel Brothers Batumi Technological Museum is housed in the former offices of the Nobel oil company on the boulevard, and tells the story of Batumi's late-nineteenth-century oil boom. The Nobels — yes, those Nobels — were among the largest exporters working out of Baku, and Batumi was their gateway to the Mediterranean.
The exhibits cover the building of the Baku-Batumi pipeline (the first long-distance pipeline in the world), the city's rise as a Russian-imperial oil port, and the Nobel brothers' brief but significant time here. The building itself is the most authentic surviving piece of the era. Small, focused, and a useful counterweight to the very contemporary Batumi outside.