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Siberia and Diamonds: Perfect Together.
It can be a hot as hell day in July but just mention Siberia and you start to deep freeze. Your sweat drys instantly, your clothes become crisp and sharp, your thirst miraculously disappears.
Siberia is legendry for its viciously cold climate. And with the nine-month-long winters and temperatures that can plunge to minus 60 Celsius, tourism ain't happening.
Nevertheless Siberia has something which draws Men towards it with great eagerness.
Diamonds.
Agence France-Presse in todays editions reports on the eastern Siberian city of Mirny (population: 40,000) and its giant Mir diamond mine that is one of Russia's best kept secrets.
It is still quite difficult for foreigners to set foot in this city of wooden barracks and hastily-built apartment houses without an official invitation from ALROSA, the world's second-largest diamond producer after DeBeers.
Foreigners who do turn up without authorization are likely to be interrogated by the Federal Security Service -- especially about their interest in diamonds -- and abruptly escorted out of the region.
Mirny is nestled in Yakutia, a region the size of India (three million square kilometers, or 1.16 million square miles) straddling the Arctic circle. Yakutia is rich in kimberlites, vertical volcanic shafts where diamonds are formed.
The first diamond deposit in Yakutia was discovered about 50 years ago, and since then extraction has grown quickly. Mir (Peace) was the the first such deposit to come into operation, and has long been Russia's pride. Since 1958, more than $17 billion (EURO 13.4 billion) worth of diamonds have come from this dig, which is 1.3 kilometers in diameter (0.8 miles) and about 500 meters deep.
Now, the crater is filled with clear green water, as technical constraints have prevented open-air mining at Mir since 2001. The deposit awaits rebirth in 2009, when an underground mine is due to be opened.
Several kilometers away, an underground mine called International is already in operation. Some 870 miners work in round-the-clock shifts to extract the precious gray-green mineral, which is then hauled off by trucks in loads weighing about 100 tons to a complex that extracts the diamonds.
Once pried out of their stone bed, raw diamonds are sorted behind armored doors in ALROSA's laboratories.
The smallest are exported to India, while the largest go to Antwerp, the center of the world diamond trade where they are cut into polished diamonds for the public.
Despite the difficult conditions and extreme climate, many are drawn to the diamond mines by salaries averaging more than $1,000 (EURO 786) a month -- a considerable sum for the region.
But Mirny's infrastructure is decrepit with broken roads and crumbling houses showing how little the town's natural riches have brought it, with the exception of a few colorful buildings that serve as ALROSA's offices and a spa hotel offered by the company.
Obviously ALROSA Mining Executives know how to take care of themselves and as regards the Mirny towns people have learned well from Marie Antoinette:
On the count of three, All together now, Gang..."Let them eat Borscht"!
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