Half Moon: Inside Sea Breeze's Artificial Peninsula

Among the various expansion projects tied to Sea Breeze, the resort-city developed by Agalarov Development on the Caspian coast near Baku, Half Moon Island stands out as the most ambitious in scale. Announced by Emin Agalarov at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in 2026, the project envisions a 50-hectare artificial island built off the Sea Breeze shoreline, with close to one million square meters of planned real estate, entertainment, and branded properties. As with any large land-reclamation announcement, it's worth separating what has been stated from what has actually broken ground.

What Half Moon Island Is

Half Moon is described by the contractor building it as an artificial peninsula on the Sea Breeze coastline, rather than an island standing offshore. The name refers to the island's planned crescent shape. Unlike Sea Breeze's original 1,000-hectare mainland footprint, which has been developed in phases since the project launched in 2006, Half Moon Island represents a genuinely new category of construction for the resort — land reclamation, rather than building on ground that already exists. That distinction matters, because artificial island projects carry a different set of engineering, financing, and timeline risks than conventional coastal development.

Scale and What's Planned

The headline figures are substantial: a 50-hectare footprint and close to one million square meters of built area across residential, hospitality, entertainment, and branded real estate categories. At this stage, the public information is largely conceptual — Agalarov Development has framed Half Moon Island as a flagship addition to Sea Breeze's portfolio, positioned alongside other components of the resort such as Marina Village, Venetian Harbour, and the Sea Breeze Marina. Specific details about building heights, unit counts, or which international brands (if any) might be attached to the branded-residence component have not been confirmed publicly in detail, and should be treated as subject to change as the project matures.

Where It Fits Within Sea Breeze

Sea Breeze itself is Agalarov Development's flagship resort-city, located roughly 22 minutes from central Baku along the Caspian coastline. Since its 2006 launch, the development has grown to include residential complexes such as Miami Residence, hospitality venues, and — more recently — a cluster of marine-facing projects: the Sea Breeze Marina, the Venetian Harbour marine facility under construction, and the canal-based Marina Village residential concept. Half Moon Island would sit alongside these as a further extension of the resort's waterfront ambitions, effectively adding new land rather than repurposing existing plots. If realized as described, it would substantially expand Sea Breeze's total footprint and its positioning as a mixed-use coastal destination rather than a purely residential development.

Timeline: What's Been Announced vs. Confirmed

It's important to be precise about what "announced" means here. The SPIEF 2026 unveiling introduced the concept and its headline figures — scale, planned use of space, and its place within the broader Sea Breeze masterplan. It did not, as far as public information indicates, come with a confirmed construction start date, a phased delivery schedule, or independently verified engineering plans. Large-scale land reclamation is a technically demanding and capital-intensive undertaking, and projects of this kind — in Baku and elsewhere along the Caspian and beyond — have historically seen timelines shift as financing, permitting, and engineering realities unfold. Nothing about that pattern is unique to Sea Breeze; it's simply the nature of artificial island development anywhere in the world. Anyone tracking Half Moon Island should treat the SPIEF announcement as a statement of intent and design ambition, not as a guarantee of a specific completion date.

What to Watch Going Forward

For those following Sea Breeze's development, the practical signals worth monitoring are the ones that separate concept from construction: whether dredging or land-reclamation work visibly begins near the announced site, whether a contractor is named and confirmed (as has happened with Evrascon on the Venetian Harbour marine facility), and whether Agalarov Development issues updated figures on scope, phasing, or delivery timing beyond the initial SPIEF presentation. Half Moon Island is a logical extension of a broader pattern already visible at Sea Breeze — marina infrastructure, canal-based residential concepts, and now proposed island expansion — all aimed at building out a full-scale, marine-oriented resort destination on the Caspian coast. Whether the island reaches its full one-million-square-meter ambition, and on what timeline, remains to be seen, and is worth tracking through verifiable construction milestones rather than renderings alone.

Correction, 23 October 2026: a peninsula, not an island — and construction is under way

The earlier version of this page said two things that are not accurate, and both are corrected here.

First, it is a peninsula and not an island. The project page of Evrascon, the contractor building it, describes it as "a large-scale project to create an artificial peninsula on the Sea Breeze coastline". The word "island" does not appear there at all. This page previously said the project was being built "into the Caspian Sea rather than on the existing coastline" — the reverse of the contractor's own wording. The commonly used project name, Half Moon Island, is also misleading on this point, and this page's URL is being kept as it is so as not to break existing links.

Second, it is not at concept stage. The contractor's page states that "construction is currently in progress." This page previously said no contractor had been named and that the project remained conceptual. Evrascon is identified as the party carrying it out.

And why that distinction is material rather than semantic. Gambling has been prohibited in Azerbaijan since 1998, and the exception approved on 8 July 2025 permits a casino only on artificial islands in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea. A peninsula joined to the coastline is not an island. Anyone reading the Half Moon land as the answer to the casino question is relying on a distinction the law in fact draws. We found no source establishing that any Sea Breeze land meets the law's condition, and no licence naming the resort. We go further in the Sea Breeze casino plan.

What is not verified: the area. The contractor's page gives no area figure and no dates. The 50-hectare and roughly one-million-square-metre figures come from the SPIEF 2026 presentation and remain a developer-stated figure.

Sources

• HALF MOON — Evrascon, the project page of the contractor building it. Source for the description as "an artificial peninsula on the Sea Breeze coastline", for construction being currently in progress, and for the project being carried out by Evrascon. The page gives no area figure and no dates.
• The 50-hectare and roughly one-million-square-metre figures: the project's presentation by Emin Agalarov at SPIEF 2026. A developer-stated figure, not independently verified.

Checked and verified on 23 October 2026.

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