Environment

It has been over eight thousand years since this mineral became the world’s most popular semi-precious stone. Although the stone is very short-lived, it is valued a lot more than gold. High-quality samples are very hard to find - 95% of items sold on the market are nothing but nice fakes.

Most gem lovers are unaware that what they have in their collections is nothing but a high-quality fake, neither they know how the real sample of this stone looks like.

This stone is a special one - it made Russia famous throughout the world, glorified the country, became a symbol of a great power the Russian Empire had.

This stone was banned in 63 countries due to being considered poisonous. The World Health Organization has officially declared that it is a carcinogen that may cause cancer. However, some states - Russia among them - do not agree with the commonly held opinion. One of the stone’s defenders is, surprisingly or not, the US President Donald Trump.

Three centuries ago, this stone, originally discovered in Russia, was one of the world’s most sought-after. The supply was outnumbered by demand manifoldly. In Russia, the stone was out of reach for ordinary people, instead it was massively exported abroad.

This mineral was first found in Russia. Its discovery credit could have been assigned to Russian scientists, if the find had been registered properly. In reality, the glory of discoverers was given to German geologists, who even named this mineral after Goethe, a German writer and statesman.

It is forecasted that the price on this stone will only go up. As of today, it has already entered the top five best selling minerals. This gem was shot in one of the most popular box office movies of the XX century and was adopted as a hallmark of the world’s oldest jewellery brand.

This stone’s colour is generally considered as one of the most rare and beautiful. The world’s greatest artists and iconographers were inspired by its sky-blue colour. Its blue lustre has been brightening the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the Vatican for centuries.

More than a hundred tons of this stone each year are illegally mined and exported from Russia. Damage to the state budget is estimated to be at the very least tens of billions of dollars.

This stone is without a doubt one of the most useful minerals on our planet. It has been over a few centuries since people started applying it for treatment of severe illnesses and human health protection in general. Health resorts of Karlovy Vary or Baden-Baden would have never been built if this stone had never existed in the first place.