The last turn of Larisa Popugayeva’s ‘pyrope path’

This year, the Russian diamond industry will celebrate a glorious anniversary, 70 years since the discovery of the first kimberlite pipe in the USSR called Zarnitsa (Summer Lightning). The kimberlite pipe was discovered on August 21, 1954 by Leningrad-based geologist Larisa Popugayeva, and this discovery had a huge effect on the USSR diamond industry and the world diamond market as a whole. A large number of publications are devoted to the history of this discovery, from articles in the popular press to scientific monographs and academic dissertations, and, at first glance, there is nothing to add to these researches, since everything has been studied in great detail. But in fact, there is one very interesting question in the history of the discovery of the Soviet Union’s primary diamond deposits, the answer to which was carefully avoided by the direct participants in the events and, subsequently, everyone who tried to analyze these events in one way or another carefully shied away from answering it. Let’s try to formulate this question.

A typical argument of a very authoritative expert on the topic under consideration is as follows: “To study the mineral composition of the riverbed deposits of the Vilyui River and some of its tributaries, a dedicated cameral field party was formed led by experienced geologist N. N. Sarsadskikh, and geologist L. A. Popugayeva joined the team. While conducting field geological exploration in the upper Markha River basin, they noticed an unusual abundance of large red carbuncles - garnets - in the alluvial sand. During a study of the Markha sand samples carried out in Leningrad in the winter of 1953-1954, an unusual violet-red color of some of these garnet granules was noted, which greatly distinguished them from red common garnets - almandines. Further study of unusual garnets made it possible to establish that they were very similar to pyropes from the South African diamond-bearing kimberlites, and to come to the conclusion that the source of pyropes in the upper reaches of the Markha River could be kimberlite rocks containing rough diamonds. Thus, it became possible to trace the ‘path’ of pyropes of bright cherry and violet-red colors by panning sand samples in the field conditions, and confidently come to the source of these pyropes, i.e. to a kimberlite pipe. From all that has been said, it follows that the discovery of pyropes in the placers of the Markha River basin was a major discovery that essentially revolutionized the methods of exploration for diamond-bearing deposits. Having summarized all these materials, N. N. Sarsadskikh and L. A. Popugayeva came to the conclusion that the largest quantity of pyropes is confined to the mouth of the left tributary of the Daldyn River - the Dyakh Spring - where, most likely, the sought-after kimberlite pipe was.” ¹

Let’s supplement the above quote with a clarifying thesis like “A. A. Kukharenko’s special merits include the ‘pyrope surveying’ method he developed in the early 1950s, which was and is widely used today in the explorations for primary diamond deposits. It was this method that allowed L. A. Popugayeva, a graduate of the Department of Mineralogy of the Leningrad State University, to discover the first primary diamond deposit in Yakutia.”²

So, it’s possible to summarize that the three Soviet scientists - mineralogist A. A. Kukharenko and geologists N. N. Sarsadskikh and L. A. Popugayeva - created the pyrope surveying method in 1953-1954 used to discover the first kimberlites in the USSR. This is a classical standpoint of the Russian diamond historiography; today, it is not disputed by anyone and has numerous documentary evidences.

There is another quote: “In 1945, the scientific adventure story “The Diamond Pipe” by Ivan Efremov was published in the Novy Mir (New World) magazine. Being an intelligent and highly qualified geologist with a good knowledge of the geological structure of Siberia, he embodied his accurate scientific forecast of a possible discovery of a kimberlite pipe in Yakutia into a such a story. The characters of his story found it about 200 km to 300 km northwest of the real future Zarnitsa pipe, in the Moyero River basin. Subsequently, the kimberlites were actually found there, although low diamond-grade ones. In this story, a ‘scarlet garnet - pyrope’³ was mentioned as accessory (associated) minerals of diamonds. Really, I. A. Efremov who was a mining engineer, paleontologist and science fiction writer, wrote his story in 1944 and published it in 1945, the heroes of which found kimberlites in Yakutia that included accessory minerals - pyropes. The answer to the logical question - how did Efremov know in 1944 that kimberlites should be searched for in Yakutia along the ‘pyrope path’ - is quite simple. Efremov had never been professionally involved in diamond geology, but he was extremely interested in Africa and African diamonds. He even named his son Allan in honor of Allan Quartermain, a fictional character, adventurer and diamond seeker, the protagonist in the novel King Solomon’s Mines by R. Haggard. Of course, Efremov read all the available literature on African diamonds. And there was a lot of literature because from the beginning of the 20th century until 1944, dozens of articles, several monographs and even textbooks were published and available in the public domain, and the pyrope surveying method was described in great detail in them, “This method was by no means a new one: prospecting the deposits based on accessory minerals (indicator minerals), in particular, pyropes, were widely used in the explorations for diamond deposits in different areas of the world. A method of exploration for diamond-bearing kimberlite pipes using indicator minerals was developed and widely used in South Africa. Following the chains of pyropes in the river sediment samples, famous diamond deposits like the Premier, Jagersfontein kimberlite pipes and others were found in South Africa in the early 20th century. The Mwadui kimberlite pipe in Tanganyika was found thanks to pyropes.”⁴ All this was well known in the USSR, “In the book Non-Metallic Fossils in the USSR published in 1936, a chapter with a detailed description was devoted to diamonds. Pyrope was a first mineral mentioned in it as the indicator mineral for diamonds.”⁵

So, a pertinent question arises. If the pyrope surveying method was known in the early 20th century and was described in detail in specialized literature available to geologists all over the world, why was it ignored by the Soviet specialists until 1953-1954? What was the reason for such a strange scientific ‘blindness’ of numerous and well-educated Soviet diamond geologists? It cannot be said that no one asked this question, “So, it would seem to be very simple - just try to find pyropes in placers along with diamonds and other minerals characteristic of kimberlites, and then approach the orebody source of pyropes and diamonds using the well-known sand surveying method. But geologists and mineralogists walked past the unlocked door with the inscription ‘pyropes’ on it - as if blindfolded - without trying to open it.”⁶ This is a quote from the memoirs of V. L. Masaitis, a direct participant in the events. So, the question was posed a long time ago, but nobody was eager to give an answer.

The search for an answer leads us to September 1946 when the Council of Ministers adopted Resolution No. 1978-832ss “On the Development of the National Diamond Industry.” This top-secret document signed by Joseph Stalin contains two items classified as ‘Highly Sensitive’. The first one deals with the formation of the appropriate departments of the GULag (Main Directorate of Camps and Places of Incarceration) and the involvement of prisoners in diamond mining, and item 5-A establishes a hierarchy between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Geology in the methodological management of the exploration for diamond deposits. In accordance with this item, an establishment having a long name ‘Geological Exploration Directorate of the Special Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR’, abbreviated in Russian as GRU SGU MVD, was on the top in the pyramid governing the diamond geological segment. In 1947, I. S. Pozhkov was appointed head of this Special Main Directorate, and it is worthwhile talking about him in more detail.

Before his appointment to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rozhkov was a chief geologist and deputy head of the Glavzoloto trust of the Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy. Despite the fact that he had never served in the security, defense and law enforcement agencies, he was immediately awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel, and later on, his career in the ‘punitive department’ was very successful. Rozhkov served about five years in the office when he received the general’s shoulder straps and became a laureate of two Stalin Prizes and a holder of the Red Star order of military merit, and he also became doctor of science and even was awarded the plaque of honour - Honored Worker of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Immediately after Stalin’s death, he left the Ministry of Internal Affairs and later on, he himself, his biographers, and even information books and encyclopedias avoided mentioning the details of the general’s activities in the GULag.

 

I. S. Rozhkov.

Holding the positions of the head of the Geological Exploration Directorate (Russian: GRU) and at the same time the deputy head of the Special Main Directorate (Rusisan: SGU) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russian: MVD), Rozhkov had no ‘superior’ in his professional (geological) activities. His immediate superior, Lieutenant General F. P. Kharitonov was a lawyer by background, a counterintelligence officer by vocation, and was clueless about matters of geology. As for the ‘civilian’ geologists, the diamond experts from the Ministry of Geology, industry and academic institutes were largely subordinate to Rozhkov both methodologically and organizationally, which can be illustrated by an interesting document concerning the discovery of the first diamond placer deposits in Yakutia; the power structure becomes absolutely clear from the letter - ‘who had the precedence of whom’. “...3. The Ministry of Geology of the USSR should transfer all the materials on the exploration of Kosa Sokolinaya (Falcon Spit) area to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR by July 1, 1951, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR should draw up a design assignment by April 1, 1952 for the development of this deposit and make proposals for the development of this area. Before July 1951, the Special Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR should send a team of specialists to carry out survey works at the Kosa Sokolinaya deposit, required for working out a project report. 4. The GRU SGU MVD (Comrade Rozhkov) should carry out all the necessary preparatory works during 1951 for carrying out the detailed exploration of the Kosa Sokolinaya deposit in 1952....”⁷

As the head of the Geological Exploration Directorate of the Special Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Rozhkov was personally responsible for the implementation of a number of points of the Resolution “On the Development of the Domestic Diamond Industry”, including paragraph 20 that read as follows: “Allow the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR and the Ministry of Geology to send 10 engineers to South Africa, the Belgian Congo and Brazil to study the practice of exploration, mining and diamond recovery technology”⁸. Preparations for this business trip took almost the entire 1947, and South Africa (then the Union of South Africa, Un.So.Af.) remained the only destination. The experience of the diamond industry in Brazil where primary deposits had not yet been discovered and mining was carried out mainly by artisanal miners was considered of no interest, and mining and exploration in the Belgian Congo was controlled by the De Beers corporation (as in the Union of South Africa), with which the negotiations were planned to be held during the business visit.

In the second half of December, 1947, three groups of three persons each left Moscow for the Union of South Africa. Each group had an interpreter who was also an employee of the Information Committee (also known as Committee-4) under the USSR Council of Ministers - a new Soviet intelligence service created in May 1947 and having the functions of political, military and economic/industrial intelligence. And the group had two employees of the Diamond Department of the Special Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who were professional geologists and mining engineers. The coordination between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Information Committee regarding the preparation of the business trip was carried out by Lieutenant General V. S. Ryasnoy who also was Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and member of the Bureau of the Information Committee for business trips. The specialists should take different routes to get to the Union of South Africa because they had Czechoslovakian, Polish and Bulgarian passports and other fake documents as ‘covers’. Neither the specialized diamond departments of the Ministry of Geology, nor the Soviet consulate in Pretoria were informed about the members of the business (expedition) trip group and their goals because of this undercover operation.

At the end of February 1948, the group returned to Moscow and the results of their work were considered successful. It should be noted that their contacts in the business trip were at rather low level, exclusively professional and operational ones because the geologists communicated with geologists, specialists on beneficiation with respective colleagues, etc. The market issues and sales schemes were not discussed, the top managers of the De Beers corporation did not contact them (unlike during the negotiations in the summer of 1947 that preceded this business trip and conducted by the London resident agency of the Information Committee). De Beers had no secrets in the diamond exploration. The Russian business group brought not only a detailed description of the discoveries of the African kimberlites to Moscow, but also the collections of indicator minerals and even rough diamonds from primary deposits. The pyrope surveying method was clear, all that remained was to implement it. The generosity of De Beers was understandable: firstly, there was nothing special to hide (the first article about the connection between pyropes and kimberlites appeared in the open press back in 1914)⁹, and secondly, De Beers was interested in the information about the Soviet diamond projects, which was provided in exchange for cooperation.

In 1945, the most prestigious Soviet scientific journal, Reports of the USSR Academy of Sciences, published an article On the Question of the Genesis of Ural Diamonds by B. K. Breshenkov.¹⁰ In this article, the author suggested that kimberlites were the parent rock of the Ural rough diamonds. The Special Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR had several geological field parties carrying out the exploration of the Ural diamond deposits in the interests of the Uralalmaz trust that was also part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. For the season of 1948, they were given a task to find the Ural kimberlites -primary diamond deposits - using exploration methods that De Beers so kindly shared with them, and focusing on Breshenkov’s hypothesis. The Ministry of Geology was not involved in this work; the Special Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR decided to take advantage of the situation, since there was every reason to achieve brilliant success, which they did not want to share with the ‘civilian’ geologists at all.

The experiment of the season of 1948 was a failure as no kimberlites were found in the Urals. Another attempt was made in the season of 1949 and it was a failure again. Very few indicator minerals of kimberlites were discovered in the diamond placers of the Western Urals, almost less than the rough diamonds, and they were also very few. Their distribution was chaotic, no ‘pyrope path’ could be traced. Breshenkov’s hypothesis was found to be false; the pyrope surveying method did not work in the Urals. It was necessary to point the finger at someone. The late 1940s were a very difficult time for the Soviet science. In 1948, the ‘Lysenko’ session of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences was held when genetics was declared an ‘anti-Marxist bourgeois science’ with all the consequences that came with it for geneticists; later on, cybernetics was declared a ‘reactionary imperialist pseudoscience’. But the worst thing for geologists was the investigative process started in 1949 against their colleagues who participated in the atomic project and were accused of sabotage during the exploration for uranium deposits (the so called ‘Krasnoyarsk geologists’ plot). By that time, dozens of geologists had been arrested over allegations of sabotage, and it became clear that neither the status of the establishments, nor the status of ‘classified documents’, nor the declared national importance of the work could save them from severe persecution for real or even alleged failures. In academic science, a negative result could be considered a completely worthy result, but failures in searching for deposits in Russia under Stalin were considered sabotage.

Rozhkov’s position that made him professionally independent turned out to have disadvantages as he became the ‘number one’ candidate for the role of a whipping boy and there was no one to hide behind. But his boss Kharitonov, the head of the Special Main Directorate, was not in a much better situation as the big share of responsibility fell on the general’s shoulders. Unlike Rozhkov, Kharitonov was not a scientist, but he was an extremely experienced ‘courtier’ and functionary. Suffice it to say that he came to the post of the head of the Special Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs after his work as the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Kazakh SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic) and then the Turkmen SSR. And most likely, he played the main role in the subsequent events. In November 1949, Kharitonov and Rozhkov submitted the report to the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs S. N. Kruglov; the report was about discovering the misinformation provided by the ‘British diamond cartel’ that used every possible way to impose misguiding and unreliable methods of diamond exploration on the Soviet side to make the exploration for new deposits in the USSR difficult. Thanks to the efforts of the Special Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the 2nd Department of the 1st Directorate of the Information Committee, the misinformation action was discovered in the shortest possible time and with a modicum of effort. Both for Kruglov and the heads of the Information Committee (which was not particularly successful in intelligence work), presenting the situation this way was very beneficial, and the report ultimately had extremely pleasant consequences as the participants in the business trip to the Union of South Africa and their immediate superiors received military awards.

86.6 carats of rough diamonds from South African kimberlite pipes were transferred to Gokhran (State Precious Metals and Gems Repository), but the fate of the collection of associated minerals remains a mystery. Unlike rough diamonds, these minerals were not subject to mandatory registration, and the Special Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs could dispose of them at their own discretion. There are some reasons to believe that they were given to the leading Soviet mineralogist A. A. Kukharenko. In his memoirs, V. L. Masaitis claims that Kukharenko used pyropes from the Jagersfontein pipe for comparative analysis. These pyropes were purchased by the St. Petersburg University back in 1912 from the Krantz company, Germany. “A. A. Kukharenko who was exploring the sands of the Ural diamond placers even during the Great Patriotic War, apparently discovered this collection quite by chance shortly before he got the pyropes from the Siberian rivers. Otherwise, he would have earlier told about the South African kimberlites and their minerals to the diamond seekers, and first of all to N. N. Sarsadskykh, which would stimulate the search for similar minerals and could result in their discovery in the placer minerals panned in the Vilyui River basin much earlier”.¹¹ But E. N. Erlich had a different opinion he expressed in his book Deposits and History, “In Russia, the fact that the search for diamonds was carried out in the Urals for a long time irreversibly left its mark on the accepted model of diamond deposits. The explorations were supervised by A. A. Kukharenko, one of the most prominent mineralogists in the country. He created the ‘Ural’ model of the potential connection of diamonds with layered intrusions of basic - ultrabasic rocks. Later, when the exploration was transferred to the Siberian platform, Kukharenko did not have the heart to abandon his concept. It was in vain that a South African geologist gave him a pyrope sample from a kimberlite pipe - it was on the museum shelf, and geologists in Siberia continued to fulfil the order of the chief geologist of the Amakinka Geological Survey Expedition to keep on exploring for diamonds in connection with a special type of differentiated basic intrusions”.¹²

So, did Kukharenko discover a pre-revolutionary collection of pyropes by chance or was it a gift to him personally from the mysterious ‘South African geologist’? In our opinion, both assumptions need to be corrected. Kukharenko came to the Leningrad State University in 1946 as a major expert in diamonds with five-year experience of working at the Ural Diamond Expedition. He was closely acquainted with Rozhkov who was the chief geologist of the Uralzoloto trust during the war and took part in setting up the Teplogorsk diamond mine. Kukharenko, a professional in diamond geology, probably had information by 1946 about the pyrope surveying method described in numerous foreign publications, and if he really found a collection of pyropes from the Krantz company, he hardly ‘found it by chance’. And Rozhkov might quite well have handed over the collection of minerals brought from the Union of South Africa by his employees to the country’s best mineralogist in 1949 or 1950. Despite the fact that the business trip to Union of South Africa and the subsequent exploration for kimberlites in the Urals were highly classified, fragmentary and distorted information was still going round in the professional community. This was how the rumors about a gift from a ‘South African geologist’ appeared. Anyway, neither the pyropes found at the museum, nor Rozhkov’s gift could fundamentally speed up the introduction of the pyrope surveying method on the Siberian platform because since 1949, not the scientific but rather administrative factor became relevant.

The conclusions made in the report by Kharitonov and Rozhkov were presented as a short briefing paper - fact sheet - of particular importance, and only eight leading ‘diamond’ functionaries of the Ministry of Geology and specialized institutes were informed of it and they acknowledged writing by putting their signatures. From that moment on, any attempt to use the pyrope surveying method was considered solely as following the disinformation provocation by the ‘diamond cartel’ and should be suppressed by any means. This information, in varying degrees of detail and distortion, was communicated to many representatives of the ‘civilian’ diamond leadership. Therefore, G. Kh. Feinstein, the future laureate of the Lenin Prize for the discovery of the Yakut diamonds, repeatedly stated until 1954 that kimberlites were an invention of cosmopolitans¹³. Apparently, the recent events were all jumbled together in his mind, including the ‘Doctors’ plot (about doctors-saboteurs)’, the ‘Geologists’ plot’, the ‘Anti-Fascist Jewish Committee’s plot’, ‘the Geneticists’ plot’ and other ‘miracles of that glorious era’. As a result, a strange situation arose in the Soviet diamond geology: the method to discover primary diamond deposits was known to almost everyone, and this was the ‘key’ to the Yakut kimberlites. It would seem, just ‘reach out your hand for it’ and use the method. But the hands were shaking.

Two weeks after Stalin’s death, on March 18, 1953, the Special Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was annihilated by resolution of the Council of Ministers No. 832-370ss. When this directorate stopped its activities, the instructions regarding the misinformation by the ‘British diamond cartel’ essentially lost effect. Rozhkov ‘took off his general’s shoulder straps’ and took up an academic career that was quite successful as he became an associate member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, director of the Central Research Geological Prospecting Institute of Non-Ferrous and Precious Metals (TsNIIGRI), and the author of numerous scientific works. Kharitonov continued his service at the Committee of State Security (KGB) and also succeeded, he became the head of the 4th Directorate and a member of the Board of the KGB of the USSR. And Kukharenko took out pre-revolutionary pyropes or those given by the ‘South African geologist’ (or maybe both) from the box and put the talented student Larisa Popugayeva in the right way. Thus, the pyrope surveying method was re-created in the USSR half a century after its first successful use in South Africa and naturally led to the discovery of the Zarnitsa kimberlite pipe.

Sergey Goryainov for Rough&Polished

P. S.

In our turbulent times, the problem of having an access to archival materials, unfortunately, is becoming more acute. Moreover, a strange practice has emerged of re-assigning the security label to already declassified documents, which radically changes the game. Therefore, I would like the readers to consider this text exclusively as a science fiction story similar to the abovementioned story The Diamond Pipe by Ivan Efremov.

Перевод сносок к разным страницам:

¹ Diamond Book of Russia. Volume 1. M., Gornaya Kniga (Mining Book), 2014, Page. 71.

² Notes of the Russian Mineralogical Society, No. 4, 1993, Page 109.

³ Kostitsin V. I. Larisa Popugayeva is the Discoverer of Diamonds in Russia. Perm State National Research University - Perm, 2016, Page 62.

⁴ Erlikh E. N. Finding a Deposit // Zvezda. 2006. No. 12.

⁵ Kostitsin V. I. Larisa Popugayeva is the Discoverer of Diamonds in Russia. Perm State National Research University - Perm, 2016, Page 62.

⁶ Masaitis V. L. Where Are the Diamonds? Siberian Diamantina. St. Petersburg. VSEGEI (A. P. Karpinsky Russian Geological Research Institute). 2004. P. 98.

⁷ RGAE (Russian State Archive for Economy). F. 8153. O. 5. D. 1166. L. 161.

⁸ GARF (State Archive of the Russian Federation). F. 5446. O. 48a. D. 825. L. 111.

⁹ Wagner P. A., 1914, The diamond fields of South Africa.//3rd edition, 1971, Johannesburg,

Transvaal Leader.

¹⁰ Breshenkov B. K. On the Question of the Genesis of Ural Diamonds // DAN USSR, 1945. T. 50. P. 421-423.

¹¹ Masaitis V. L. Where Are the Diamonds? Siberian Diamantina. St. Petersburg. VSEGEI (A.P. Karpinsky Russian Geological Research Institute). 2004. P. 179.

¹² Erlikh E. N. Deposits and History. The Written Letter Remains. 2016. P. 340.

¹³ Ibid. P. 249.