History of gold in Russia.
Based on the book "THE RUSSIAN GOLD" (Moscow, 1994).
Edited by Vladimir Kroupnik
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Russia is one of the major gold producers in XIX-XX centuries. Had not its own gold and silver till the end of the XVII century. A very limited amount of gold and silver used to be imported from abroad. Many Russian counts and tsarís sent expeditions to prospect for gold, silver and base metals in the outskirts of the great empire but lack of knowledge and experience led all the early attempts to failures.

As well as other numerous innovations in the life of Russia successful gold exploration and mining were introduced by Peter the Great. When travelling in Western Europe Peter became acquainted with fundamentals of mineralogy, mining and metallurgy and being confident in mineral potential of Russia did his best to organize geological exploration in then a backward country. Invitation of skilled professionals from the most advanced European countries (England, Germany, and Holland) was a very important step forward.

The results did not make wait for too long. In 1702 the first silver deposit was discovered in Transbaikalia (Nerchinsky Mine) and first Russian silver was produced shortly after that. In 1714 one then very few Russian chemists Ivan Makeev managed to detect gold in predominantly silver ore of the Nerchinsky Mine and in 1719 the first gold bullion was produced.

Another vital innovation of Peter the Greatís was a legal document named "The Mining Privilegeî" and issued in 1719. This act stimulated private initiative in exploration and mining and gave a great boost to the Russian quest for gold.

A series of discoveries followed the act. In 1737 gold was on the northern coast of the White Sea, then, in 1733-35, in the Altay mountains (as a by-product in silver ores). In 1745 a simple peasant Erofey Markov found gold on the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains. It took two years to verify his find and in 1748 the first Russian purely gold mine was set up. Why was it so slow and did not ignite a major gold rush? The answer is simple: gold mining than remained the stateís monopoly and the vast majority of the Russian population (both peasants and industrial workers) were serfs attached to numerous noble landlords or few industrialists and nearly no free hands were available for large scale gold mining.

A horse driven skipping machine.	Water lift (fume) - a typical unit of many Russian gold mines in the XIX century.

Nevertheless, by the end of the XVII century about 140 hard rock gold occurrences had been found in the Urals and several new gold mines were put into production.

In 1803 the first gold deposit was found on the western slope of the Urals. New discoveries finally inspired the Russian Government to unchain the private initiative. In May 1812 the Senate issued an Act ìOn the provision to all Russian subjects a right to search and mine gold and silver ores with a payment of royalties to the Kazna (National Stateís Bank)î. Since that moment numerous private enterprises of the Urals region began to put into production one gold mine after another. The gold output of the country began to grow. It is noteworthy that the whole lots of mining remained hard rock and predominantly underground.

The total output of gold in the Russian Empire between 1719 and 1800 made up 22,491.1 kg. The silver producing mines in the Altay Mountains made up approximately 70% of this figure but their share clearly showed signs of decline against the background of quick growth of the gold production in the Urals in the last two decades of the XVIII century.

Amazingly the famous Russian gold placers were yet to be found. Actually presence of gold in river sediments was known but nobody possessed the skills to extract it! For example on some mines they tried to process alluvial gravel as hard rock ore. Needless to say crushing and grinding only led to dilution of paydirt and kept making it uneconomic. Sadly, it took the Russians more than 100 years to capitalize the task given by Peter the Great: "LOOK FOR SANDY GOLD!"î

In 1813 a little girl Katerina Bogdanova found a gold nugget in the basin of the Neiva River (Mid-Urals) and brought it to a local official. Instead of an award she received a punishment (whipping) and was ordered to keep her mouth shut. Probably, the local authorities did not want any social disturbance and feared to ignite an uncontrolled gold rush in the area populated by serfs (as well as the Australian authorities in the first half of the XIX century did not want to let the largely convict population know about presence of gold in New South Wales). Nearly at the same time a hunter who lived next to the Berezovsky gold diggings found a nugget when digging a trap for a deer and failed to keep silent. Somebody reported to the authorities, the hunter was then severely whipped and died shortly after that having taken the mystery of the locality of his find to grave.

But a talented local mining foreman Lev Brusnitsyn got interested in this story and convinced the director of the local mine to send a party to explore the probable gold occurrence. The party had been stubbornly test pitting the toe of a slope of a river valley for several months until Brusnitsyn chanced to place several pits in the river bottom. Then he tested the dirt in different portions of a hard rock metallurgical circuit and found that sluicing was good enough to extract payable gold! Thus the first Russian alluvial gold deposit was found.

A horse driven train for ore carting. In the background - shaft headgear.	Open cut alluvial gold mining in the Lenski district from a deeply (25m) buried placer.

Brusnitsyn discovered several placers in the vicinity of the Berezovsky hard rock diggings and in 1823 there were already about 200 alluvial operations in the Urals. Privately owned operations produced twice more than the state owned ones. 11500 workers were employed by them and the annual output totaled at about 1600kg (2000kg with hard rock operations).

Due to the alluvial gold the output of this metal in the Urals grew up to 8.2t in 1870, 9.8t in 1880 and reached its peak in 1892 - 12.8t. Later with depletion of the richest placers it began to decline and in 1913 made up 8.2t.

Many famous nuggets were found in the alluvial deposits of the Urals in the XIX century. The biggest one (36.02kg) nowadays may be seen in the Russian Diamond Fund in Moscow, Kremlin.

The newly grown Russian gold mining business began to look at the vast Siberian territories already in the mid-twenties of the XIX century. In 1826 the Crown granted the first permissions to search for gold to several entrepreneurs and in early 30-s a wave of gold rush inundated mountainous areas of the Southern Siberia. The main method of prospecting was digging of test pits. Private companies did not bother about employment of educated professionals and many placers were discovered by simple prospectors who had never read a book on geology or mining in their lives. Those were prospectors (staratels) Masharov (nicknamed for his bush craft and luck The Napoleon of Taiga (Siberian bush), Ivanov, Shipalin, Zhmayev, Familtsev and many others who could recognize quartz, greenstones, ironstone and were able to see mineralized lineaments and knew basics of geomorphology.

A few discoveries were made by State owned parties led by experienced mining engineers.

Hundreds of alluvial deposits were found in late 20-s and 30-s of the XIX century in the mountains of Altay, Sayan, Eniseysky Kriazh. The discoveries and newly opened diggings attracted dozens if not hundreds of thousands of people many of which were former serfs who had run away from their landlords and factory owners. Most of them were the first free people out of many generations of those who belonged to the ìhostsî. The quest for freedom and gold went together! It was a gold rush not smaller than any of those glorious ones which would occur a bit later in Australia, California, Alaska or South Africa.

A Russian gold prospector. Note that the Russian gold pan is actually a tray carved from a large piece of wood.	A gold mine in Central Siberia. Water supply line on the left hand side, in the center (background) - trommel. Pay dirt is moved by horse-power.

Loading horse driven carts by pay dirt from a ditch.	Test pitting in Siberia. The pit is equipped by a windlass and a bucket the diggers are unloading.

Gold washing in the winter (first half of the XIX century).

Vladimir Kroupnik, born in Moscow, Russia in 1959. In 1981 graduated from the Moscow University and in 1981-1992 worked in alluvial gold exploration in the Ural mountains, Arctic coast of Siberia and in the Sayan mountains (Southern Siberia). In 1992 moved to Western Australia and since then has worked in hard rock gold exploration and mining in Western Australia, Victoria and overseas (Kazakhstan). E-Mail: kroupnik@aapt.net.au