Ural Geological Museum

The Ural Geological Museum at the Ural State Mining University holds one of the finest collections of Ural minerals in the world, assembled over more than two centuries. The display cases contain specimens of malachite the colour of thunderclouds, alexandrite that shifts from green to red in different light, rhodonite in deep raspberry pink, and gold in its natural form — not refined bullion but gold as it comes from the earth, branching and crystalline. There are also meteorite fragments, fossils, and gem-quality stones that the Ural mines once supplied to the imperial workshops.

The museum is not large by international standards but the quality of the specimens is exceptional. This is the region that produced the stones for Fabergé eggs and the great inlaid table-tops of the Hermitage, and seeing the raw materials explains why Russian decorative stonework reached heights it did in the 18th and 19th centuries. Admission is very cheap. The university building itself is an interesting piece of Soviet-era academic architecture.

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A story
The Urals are one of the richest mineral provinces on earth — the mountains have yielded gold, platinum, iron, copper, malachite, alexandrite, rhodonite, emeralds, and dozens of semi-precious stones. Ekaterinburg became the lapidary capital of Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the Fabergé workshop sourced some of its finest stone from the Ural mines. The geological museum holds physical specimens that demonstrate why this mountain range produced some of the most spectacular decorative stonework in the world.

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