This unique natural gemstone comes from the Alrosa-owned Russian Ebelyakh mine and is said to be the largest pink diamond ever found. It was cut out of a rough piece of clear pink diamond weighing 27.85 carats that had been baptised with the name of Nijinsky, after the great Russian ballet danser of the same name. After one full year of planning, cutting and polishing by the Russian "Diamonds of Alrosa" cutting factory in Moscow, "Spirit of the Rose" came to life, called this time after the ballet where Vaslav Nijinsky excelled as the leading role, interpreting... a rose!

Rough diamonds were first found in Russia around the 18th century but commercial diamond production really started in 1957 with the development of the Mir mine, in the Sakha Republic. In the 1960’s, the mine was already producing 10’000’000 carats of diamond per year, of which 20% were of gem quality. This increase in production, lead De Beers to hugely invest in soviet diamonds as they feared for their monopole of the diamond market. Today, most of the mining activity in Russia is done by Alrosa, a partially stateowned company, which is the worlds' largest diamond producer by volume. But like a lot of companies in the world today, even the worlds largest diamond producer is suffering from the corona pandemic. Alrosa claims that this years figure was 79% lower than last year in the summer ($35.8 million against $170.5 million last year!). However, it didn’t prevent them to unearth the largest coloured diamond ever mined in Russia this past August: 236 carats of intense yellow-brown colour, which was mined at the Ebelyakh mine as well.

In 2011, Alrosa became owner of the Ebelyakh diamond mine through auction, which turned out to be one of the largest diamond mine in Russia and to have an annual production capacity of 1.5 million carats. Most Russian diamonds being concentrated in kimberlite pipes, the Ebelyakh mine however is one of the few alluvial mines in Russia. Through time and new discoveries, the Ebalyakh mine has been proven to be a reliable source of fancy coloured diamond. In 2017, three unique fancy coloured diamonds were mined there within one month: intense yellow, pink and purple-pink! Hint, hint: "Spirit of the Rose" is a fancy purple-pink diamond.
In 2019, an intense yellow diamond of 20.69 carats, baptised "Firebird" was sold to Graff as the first direct purchase without intermediaries between both diamond giants, starting what Sergey Ivanov, Alrosa CEO, believes is the beginning of a long and trustful relationship. According to Alrosa, "Firebird" and "Spirit of the Rose" are part of a collection, "The Spectacle", dedicated to the world of Russian ballets, Firebird being a legendary ballet, which premiered in 1910 at the Grand Opera in Paris. The rough of 34.17 carats that gave birth to the intense yellow diamond was named after the composer who wrote the music of the ballet, Igor Stravinsky. A third and unique coloured diamond, part of this spectacular collection, is going to be revealed to public by the end of the year - and if you read the whole post, you might have found the colour this beauty is going to display: pink!
I say, keep your eyes wide open and your radar on, for it promisses to be exceptional.

Mélanie MATTHES
2020-11-17