0.67 ct Demantoid Garnet #1217008

During the first half of the 19th century, Russian miners working on a gold and platinum placer in the Bobrovka river, near the village of Elizavetinskoye in the Ural Mountains, discovered striking green gemstones in the sands. Initially mistaken for peridot, these gems were finally identified as andradite garnet (Demantoid Garnet).

In 1884, a major deposit of demantoid was found relatively close to the source of the Bobrovka river, near the village of Poldnevaya, 200 km south of the first discovery at Elizavetinskoye. Production of demantoid garnet kept increasing during the late 19th century to 1913 when it reached a record of over 100 kg of rough being extracted.

During the final twilight years of the Soviet Union, artisanal mining and prospection for demantoid garnets restarted in the Urals. The prospection efforts paid off in 1991 when a new deposit of demantoids was discovered at Korkodin, only a few kilometers away from the historical deposit of Poldnevaya. The Korkodin mine proved to be a prolific producer of fine demantoids, although they tend to be, on average, darker in tone than the demantoids from the other sources.

The old Poldnevaya mine itself was revived in 2013 after an extensive geological survey and the production has now restarted. Poldnevaya and Korkodin are both large, mechanized mines and their productions account for the vast majority of the newly mined Russian demantoids. The rest comes from small artisanal mining along the banks of the Bobrovka river.