Russia

Until its collapse, the Soviet Union was the world’s second largest producer of gold. Russia itself contributed two-thirds of that gold and has a long history as a leading producer. Today, Russia ranks sixth with around 165 tonnes (5.3 million oz) in 2001, according to GFMS (see Russia Transition from 1990 to 2001).

Taken with Russia’s former partners, GFMS suggests that the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) had output around 299.1 tonnes (9.6 million oz).

Gold production in Russia goes back many centuries. Rich alluvial deposits in the Ural mountains yielded gold that passed down ancient trade routes to the Black Sea, Constantinople (Istanbul) and the Mediterranean.

In 1744 a quartz outcrop found at Ekaterinburg in the Urals stimulated expansion. In 1823 Czar Alexander I set up a commission to encourage exploration. By 1830 output around Ekaterinburg was almost 6 tonnes (0.19 million oz). As prospectors moved east into the Altai mountains and to Siberia along the Yenisei river locating fresh alluvial deposits, production rose to 25 tonnes (0.8 million oz) by 1846, making Russia the world’s top producer on the eve of the Californian and Australian gold rushes.

Although overtaken by the United States, Australia and South Africa, Russia’s output rose to 60 tonnes (1.9 million oz) by 1914. After the Revolution, Stalin saw gold mining as a way of opening up the vast wastes of Siberia, having noted the effect of California on the development of the American West.

By the 1930s output was 155 tonnes (5 million oz). Thereafter, no hard production information was available until the 1990s, but the Soviet Union certainly stayed in second place after South Africa. The output was aided by the opening of the giant Muruntau open pit in Uzbekistan in 1969.

In Russia itself most production has always come from placer deposits in Siberia and the Russian Far East, concentrated between the Lena and Aldan rivers, the province of Magadan and the Kamchatka and Chukotsk peninsulas.

The harsh climate means the mining is seasonal; even in summer extracting gold from terrain locked solid by the permafrost is difficult. Much of the gold is won by huge dredgers excavating gold-bearing sands in the rivers once they thaw. The heart of the system is several hundred artels or co-operatives, each managing their own affairs and employing between 30 and 1,000 people.