In February 1938, Dmitry Ivanovich Mushketov was sentenced under Article No. 58 to the highest punishment and executed on the same day. He had been arrested on charges of allegedly “creating a counter-revolutionary terrorist group in 1930 and committing acts of sabotage.” After eight months of imprisonment, a bullet from an NKVD officer ended the life of the distinguished geologist, Doctor of Sciences, and former rector of the Mining Institute (1917-1928).
Dmitry Ivanovich was born in 1882 in St. Petersburg, into the family of the well-known Russian scientist and Mining Institute professor Ivan Mushketov.
Dmitry’s father spent much of his time in countless expeditions worldwide: discovering new mineral deposits, creating the first geological map of Central Asia, and scientifically studying earthquakes. On the rare occasions he was home, he would tell his sons about distant lands and their natural riches, the structure of the Earth, and its origins.
Dmitry studied at the Imperial Historical and Philological Gymnasium, where he became fluent in German, French, and English and played the cello beautifully. As a boy, he was captivated by the works of Mayne Reid, James Fenimore Cooper, and Jules Verne, which led him to dream of becoming either a sailor or a geologist. However, given that his family lived in a residence at the Mining Institute, surrounded by prominent experts in metallurgy, mineralogy, and mining, it’s fair to say that Dmitry Ivanovich’s career was shaped by destiny. Following in his father’s footsteps, he entered Russia’s first technical university.
After completing his studies, the young specialist joined the Geological Committee for “practical work” and started teaching at both the Mining Institute and the Institute of Railway Engineers.
At that time, the Geological Committee was conducting a 10-verst geological survey across many regions of the country, and Mushketov traveled extensively with expeditions through Turkestan, Eastern Siberia, Yakutia, the Far East, the Donetsk coal basin, and the Caucasus. He was interested in a wide array of geological challenges, both theoretical and practical. He discovered previously unknown coal-bearing areas in the South Ussuri region, studied the tectonic structure of the Fergana Valley in detail, examined the Paleogene and Cretaceous formations in the Donetsk basin, investigated landslides in the Sochi area, analyzed the glaciation of the Alai Range in the southern Tian Shan, and even examined the devastating Messina earthquake in Italy. He also managed to work in Mongolia and Japan.
1915 marked a turning point for Mushketov. He was "graciously appointed as a Knight of the Imperial and Royal Order of Saint Stanislaus, Third Class, in recognition of his exemplary and dedicated service." This honor acted as a “green light” for his career. Mushketov defended his dissertation at the Mining Institute, earning the title of adjunct professor, and was elected to head the Department of General Geology. Just three years later, at the age of 36, he became the rector of his alma mater and the head of the department.
Mushketov’s natural talent as a scientist was matched by his undeniable skill as an organizer of scientific efforts. He established several new faculties, including the crucial Department of Geological Exploration, led the development of educational courses in new specialties, founded and headed the Institute of Applied Geophysics, and initiated the construction of the Laboratory for Mechanical Processing of Field Minerals.
He led the institute through the first ten years after the revolution, a period fraught with challenges. Due to the civil war and subsequent devastation, the student body dwindled rapidly. In the academic year 1918–1919, the total number of students did not exceed 70.
«The inevitable result would have been the destruction of Russian mining engineering staff and total dependency of Russian mining on foreign expertise», - Mushketov wrote.
He played a decisive role in preserving the country’s oldest mining school. When the Council of People’s Commissars debated the Mining Institute’s future, Mushketov not only defended its existence but also secured immediate government action to support it. As a result, students were exempted from military service, required to complete their education, and provided with financial support.
One theory suggests that Mushketov’s acquaintance with Vladimir Lenin influenced this favorable outcome.
Lenin's Collected Works (1965 edition) include a note in which the leader suggests, «Perhaps we should bring Mushketov here, to join the board of one of the commissariats?».
In 1926, Mushketov was appointed director of the Geological Committee (Geolkom), which was designated as the highest geological institution in the country by a decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Council for the National Economy (VSNKh). The institution was tasked with organizing, conducting, and regulating all nationwide geological exploration activities, overseeing more than 250 geological teams.
Despite his leadership duties, Mushketov actively engaged in scientific research, contributing to various institutes within the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and KEPS (Commission for the Study of the Productive Forces). His ideas, such as the existence of two intersecting fold directions in Central Asia, were revisited in the latter half of the 20th century in light of developments in cross-zonal tectonic theories. His concept of large-scale lateral shifts began gaining attention in the Soviet Union only in the late 1960s.
However, his truly groundbreaking contribution was his diamond exploration theory, which emerged during a trip to Africa.
By that time, Mushketov had gained considerable international renown. He traveled widely, corresponded with over 100 foreign scientists, and participated in the work of the International Geological Congress (IGC).
In 1929, the 15th session of the congress took place in South Africa, which at that time produced up to 95% of the world’s diamonds. The primary focus of the forum was the geology of diamond deposits.
With the growing needs of the Soviet economy and the recent launch of the first five-year plan for accelerated development, this topic was extremely relevant for the USSR. Diamonds were recognized as a strategically important resource, but actual diamond mining was minimal, with only a few small deposits being worked in the Urals. The search for primary deposits had yet to succeed. As a result, diamonds were purchased on foreign markets, spending both gold and hard-earned foreign currency.
Mushketov’s main task as the head of the Soviet delegation was to become familiar with the geology of African diamond deposits and their unique extraction methods from deep open pits resembling enormous craters.
Congress participants visited mines and diamond processing plants before arriving in Kimberley, the center of South Africa’s "diamond rush." Finally, Dmitry Ivanovich was able to see and study the largest diamond deposit in the world—the "Big Hole," which had been excavated almost entirely by hand in the 19th century by prospectors who flocked there. The mine was developed by De Beers, the British company that held a monopoly on diamond resources.
Upon returning to Russia, Mushketov, along with his colleague Nikolay Fedorovsky, the second most prominent Soviet scientist among those who visited Africa, developed a theory about the origins of precious stones and the indicators for locating them. Most importantly, they provided a forecast of where to search for diamonds in the Soviet Union:
«The type of South African deposits has not yet been found in our country, but it is possible that it may be located in the many volcanic regions of Siberia (Yakutia) and the Northern Urals».
This statement became the first reference in Russian literature to the potential diamond-bearing nature of these regions. They noted that most diamond pipes were filled with “blue ground”—kimberlite. Among its common indicators, they mentioned pyrope, ilmenite, enstatite, phlogopite, and chromian diopside.
In 1934, Fedorovsky published the book In the Land of Diamonds and Gold, where he outlined the conclusions he and Mushketov had reached. Dmitry Ivanovich also published On the Tectonics of Africa, highlighting the similarity between the geological structures of the South African Plateau and the East Siberian Platform, which underscored the correctness of their recommended search direction.
These results were crucial for determining where large-scale diamond exploration efforts should be conducted, yet the implementation of Mushketov’s theory was halted.
In 1929, the “royal” Geological Committee (Geolkom) was dismantled, marking yet another round of ideological struggle. Sixteen people were convicted in the case of a "counter-revolutionary organization." Although Mushketov was not directly implicated, a campaign against him had begun.
Mushketov traveled to South Africa with an official invitation to hold the 16th session of the International Geological Congress (IGC) in the Soviet Union. Although the United States was ultimately chosen to host the congress, Moscow was scheduled to host the 17th session in 1937. In a letter from the congress’s Secretary General, Walter Mendenhall, it was stated that “only the high scientific authority of Mushketov and his work conducted in Africa led to the selection of the USSR as the forum’s host country.”
A popular theory among historians of science suggests that the early 1930s saw the rise of another prominent figure in Soviet geology, one who could not tolerate such strong competition. Mushketov’s reputation was vast, and his international connections extensive. Given that he had traveled abroad 14 times on official assignments—to Western Europe, North America, South Africa, China, and Japan—and was a member of geological and geographical societies in Germany, Belgium, France, England, China, and the United States, accusations of espionage were all too easy to fabricate.
Supporting this view, it is noted that Mushketov was later barred from traveling to the United States. Instead, Ivan Gubkin led the Soviet geological delegation and assumed the presidency of the Moscow IGC in 1937…
«Ivan Mikhailovich Gubkin was a terror to geologists. He was constantly on the lookout for 'saboteurs' around him, delivering alarming accusatory speeches. If he considered someone unsuitable, that person and their close colleagues would fall out of favor, and their careers could be ruined—or worse», - recounted geologist Vladimir Belousov in his published memoirs.
In any case, Dmitry Ivanovich was removed from his post as rector, although he remained head of his department, director of the Mining Museum, and continued his work at the Seismological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN). His close friend and the first director of the RAN Geological Institute, Vladimir Obruchev, invited him to join his research institute, where Mushketov took charge of the tectonics and geomorphology department. He never gave up, but just 23 days before the Moscow session of the International Geological Congress, he was arrested. Numerous letters from his colleagues indicate that no one knew what had happened to him afterward; most believed that he had died in a labor camp in Kolyma.
«The date of his death is known only to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to the camp administration, if it still exists...» -
wrote his student, academician and laureate of the Lenin and Stalin Prizes, Dmitry Nalivkin, in 1962. Information about his fate and his complete rehabilitation in 1956 only became known much later.
All that happened pushed back the discovery of such critical diamond deposits for the country by decades. Soviet geologists promoted the idea that Soviet diamonds had a different origin than African diamonds, while only at the Mining Institute did they adhere to Mushketov's theory.
In the story The Diamond Pipe (1945) by Ivan Efremov, a Soviet paleontologist and well-known science fiction writer and alumnus of the Mining Institute, he describes two geologists discovering the first kimberlite pipe through the presence of pyropes:
«On the coarse-grained surface of the fracture, numerous pyrope crystals—a red garnet—sparkled like tiny drops, and inclusions of olivine shimmered with a pure green glow.».
The story takes place 300 kilometers north of "Zarnitsa," discovered by Larisa Popugaeva ten years after the story was published. Both the location and the search indicators precisely matched the predictions of Dmitry Mushketov and Nikolai Fedorovsky.
In 1954-1955, three diamond deposits were discovered near the Arctic Circle. The news of Russian diamonds caused the stock of the diamond monopoly, De Beers, to plummet. The company immediately offered to supply diamonds to the Soviet Union at an acceptable price, countering politicians who were attempting to declare a diamond embargo. In 1957, the first Yakutian diamonds began to flow abundantly into industrial development, and Yakutia became the center of first Soviet, and later Russian, diamond mining.
