N e w s

The diamond mining in this region began in the middle of last century together with the Comsomol building projects and the possibility to earn good money (for Soviet era).

Nowadays Yakutia provides a quarter of the whole diamonds at the global gemstone market. Alexey Kudrin, Vice- Prime minister and the Minister of Finance of Russian Federation, lately appointed the Chairman of the Supervising Council of Russian diamond monopolist "ALROSA", first visited the mining sites.

The precise number of diamonds produced by the mine is yet unknown - this information is regarded to be strictly confidential. Roughly, one mining plant produces about half a bucket of rough diamonds per shift , that is around a full bucket in 24 hours. The cost of such "bucket" is about $ 800 000.

However, these figures are still very vague. For example, not that long ago, diamond weighing 182 carats was discovered by the plant ¹14. A market price of this rough stone is around $ 2 million. After the cut its price will grow in several times.

The owner of all these riches is "ALROSA" company, still being a Closed Joint Stock Company. The main share package of the company is owned by the Government of Russia and Yakutia. The main buyer of Yakutian diamonds is "De Beers".