In February, JUNWEX St. Petersburg 2025 International Jewelry Industry Forum, one of the most significant projects of the “Jewelry Russia” Unified Exhibition Program, was held in St. Petersburg.
Valery Budny, Head of the Jewelry Russia Program and CEO of the RESTEC JUNWEX Media Holding, told Rough&Polished about the past event recently held, about the status of St. Petersburg as Russia’s jewelry capital, about the latest trends in the jewelry industry, as well as the forecasts for the future and his future plans.
The February edition of JUNWEX St. Petersburg was, perhaps, the most significant show of the jewelry industry’s achievements in the country. What makes it so?
JUNWEX St. Petersburg traditionally held in the first ten days of February, opens the ‘jewelry’ year. As a result of the lack of common sense in building the exhibition business infrastructure and the deficit of exhibition space created, the JUNWEX St. Petersburg project has become the largest-scale in the Russian Federation. The exhibition area is 20,000 square meters and there are about four hundred participants.
What is the difference between the February edition of JUNWEX this year from previous ones?
This year, almost 30 percent fewer trade specialists came than last February, but the number of retail customers steadily decreasing in recent years, showed a 12-percent increase for the first time.
At the opening ceremony of JUNWEX St. Petersburg 2025, you said that the show sets trends for the entire jewelry industry. Which of them could be noted based on the results of the last exhibition?
The new jewelry items presented by factories during this period actually set the main trends in jewelry fashion and technology for the spring-summer trading season. Jewelry items purchased by wholesalers in early February basically will be on the counters of jewelry stores for the next six months (with a small quantity of additional jewelry goods that will be purchased at the May edition of JUNWEX exhibition, including small and specific assortment of jewelry items made of Sun Stone - amber - and designer jewelry items made of non-traditional materials, anklets, etc.) to be used only in the summer and at the seaside.
This February edition of JUNWEX St. Petersburg has shown that there are increasingly more silver jewelry items in circulation. The use of gold in jewelry is declining for obvious reasons. In 2024, the cost of gold increased by a third and resulted in higher prices for silver.
Wholesalers bought less jewelry items, but for more money than earlier.
As for jewelry imports, I would not note any changes in our country’s imports.
How successful can domestic jewelry products be in competing with imported ones?
It should be said that in the current economy, domestic jewelry manufacturing continues thanks to new technologies introduced over the past two decades and the resulting flexibility in the assortment policy. High technological effectiveness also maintains a balance in competition with imported jewelry.
The schemes of jewelry imports have changed. Legal imports from Western countries are slowed down by the time required for going through the procedures of the SIIS PMPS (State Integrated Information System in the control over the circulation of precious metals, precious stones and products from them at all stages of their circulation), which is a brilliant masterstroke by the authorities! But the Eurasian Economic Union makes up for the non-taxable imports of jewelry items manufactured outside of Russia.
Ironically, the Azerbaijanis and the Armenians are skilled traders. The former at least sell various fruits they grow. The latter sell polished diamonds made from our roughs. We ourselves stimulated legal smuggling.
Recently, there has been a fierce dispute in jewelry industry chats regarding the proposal of some representatives of the management of the Guild of Jewelers of Russia to abolish import duties on precious stones. What is your take on this issue?
As I said, this is ‘legal smuggling’, and we ourselves have stimulated it.
Having destroyed the cutting and polishing sector in our own country, we gave preference to the EAEU country allegedly for ‘domestic’ cutting and polishing. Although we all know what was behind this scheme and what the intentions were regarding cutting and polishing hubs in India... The actually legal imports (duty-free) have increased due to schemes worked out during the sanctions - through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan... These are additional ‘overhangs’ on Russia’s jewelry business that reduce its competitiveness. The diamond industry has long been discussing the approaches to recreating Russia’s own cutting and polishing sector destroyed by interested parties in their own country. But once our country was famous in the world for its ‘Russian cut’ brand. The cutting and polishing sector cannot be restored without a state support. The state support for this sector could include, for example, granting preferences for the purchase of rough diamonds from ALROSA, and patriotically minded market players looking ahead to the future insisted on this practice. But many of the jewelry manufacturers living by today’s interests demand the abolition of import customs duties on polished diamonds. We should understand them: they cannot develop, they are losing momentum and refusing to use sophisticated stones in an attempt to survive using imported inserts at the current prices. In this situation, only the state can take a decision and make cutting and polishing companies profitable in the country. «And many of us are ashamed to see how those outside Russia are battening on us, and those inside Russia are fattening on us...»
What do you think about the status of St. Petersburg as the jewelry capital of Russia? Does your city live up to this status?
The JUNWEX St. Petersburg’s exposition has long demonstrated the outcome of the dispute about what city is the jewelry capital now. St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and Moscow retain the status of major jewelry industry centers. The soul of Carl Fabergé has remained in the cultural capital, and St. Petersburg jewelers preserve the artistic style of the great jewelry artist and maestro. It was in St. Petersburg in 1994 that the program of the All-Russian Jewelers’ Competition in three stages was launched, annually discovering new jewelry artists and talented designers. The jewelry items that are prize-winners in the competition are a magnificent addition to the Chronicle of Russia’s Modern Jewelry Art, which has been maintained for several decades by RosYuvelirExpert. The prestigious professional competition develops the high creative potential of our jewelers, helping them in the striving for prominence and primacy in the global market. The judging panel comprising famous art historians representing leading Russia’s museums with the State Hermitage being the main of them, shows the weight of the competition and the interest of foreign colleagues in it.
Nevertheless, Kostroma has long been the leader in jewelry production. In St. Petersburg, the number of jewelry manufacturers has been reduced by half (although the city has retained its 7-8 percent in total jewelry production). St. Petersburg’s jewelry factories that were famous both in the country and in the world are little noticed or completely forgotten. However, many other previously large-scale and famous jewelry factories in Russia were also shut-down, having fallen into the hands of incompetent ‘privatizers’ who used the buildings they received as marketplaces.
Now, the tone in St. Petersburg’s jewelry business is set by Zircon S, Alfa-Karat, SANIS, Grant, and Talant, brought into the world by the modern market.
What other participants in the JUNWEX St. Petersburg would you like to mention?
Today in Russia, such new companies as SOKOLOV, Efremov, Alexandra Gr., ALIKOR company, Diamonds of Kostroma, Vesna, Brilliant Style, Era jewelry, Veronika, AQUAMARINE, ATOLL, Master Brilliant, Kabarovsky, Imperial, DELTA, Jewelry Traditions (Yuvelirnye Traditsii), etc. popular with customers are successfully operating along with the St. Petersburg jewelry companies mentioned above. At the exhibition, they are primarily in demand by trade, since they offer a diverse range of jewelry designed for a wide consumer audience. These jewelry companies were set up by private investors from scratch and are distinguished by practicality aimed at increasing their profits. Today, it is not the beauty that rules the world, but the financial interest. I’m not going to say that this is good or bad. The jewelry industry is becoming increasingly more monopolized because out of 10 thousand jewelry manufacturers in the country, approximately 2 thousand keep on operating; in jewelry trade, out of 12 thousand previously registered legal entities, only 4 thousand ones are still operating now. Globalization, on the one hand, and individual tastes, artistic preferences, and even budgets, on the other hand, are contradictory things. A return to individualism - the natural state of the jewelry market - is expected in the future. The today’s growing monsters will ‘deflate’. People, who decorate themselves only - beloved and unique ‘themselves’ - due to their egoistic individualism, do not want to be like others. The Ministry of Finance that oversees the jewelry market needs to realize this. Today, officials are holding back the development by supporting monopolies. The future will not be in line with their administrative views. They will not be remembered with a kind word later...
What are your forecasts about the jewelry industry’s prospects in the, in exhibition activities?
At the time when we freely communicated with our colleagues in the global jewelry market, our view of the jewelry industry’s future was supported by leading operators of continental exhibitions. In the context of the development of digitalization and online sales, the future of the jewelry industry is in exclusivity and individuality. Industry-oriented exhibitions, where wholesale booths rule today, will remain in the past. The future belongs to exhibitions-competitions, where trends in style, design, and technology come into being. Where ‘Her Majesty Fashion’ comes into being! The jewelry items to be demonstrated by models on such catwalks at exhibitions will be worn by queens and screen stars, and the rest of the world will follow them. At first, the elite is expected to follow them, then the jewelry items will be on all Internet platforms, but their budget versions.
In the city where the great Carl Fabergé lived and created his art works, our initiative to organize the World Competition named after the great jewelry artist and Maestro did not find support. The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Culture, and other authorities did not delve into this topic. And later on, the world experienced a Covid-19 pandemic, military conflict, sanctions... It is not the right time now.
But we are not losing hope. The puzzle pieces of the vision of the future are gradually fitting together. The players in the mass market, who are currently prosperous, have an understanding of the prospects.
Share your plans for the future
The organizing committee has received applications for the upcoming May edition of JUNWEX New Russian Style 2025 to host several boutique-style booths under the names of ambitious creators of new brands striving to conquer the world. This is a good sign and a very well-timed move. We are happy to contribute to this. The venue for the JUNWEX exhibition, the Timiryazev Center, a modern complex that allows the JUNWEX Moscow exhibitions to return to their previous scale, also helps in achieving success. I will not show all the cards yet, but these new participants give a chance to hope for the future triumph of the domestic jewelry industry.
I also hope for the return of those few former participants in our exhibitions, who left the domestic market and are trying to seek their fortune at the shows abroad. It is difficult to expect success at the exhibitions in the countries, where nobody knows you, if you have been forgotten in your own country. We have seen plenty of deplorable results of such arrogant aerial fancies - ‘pies-in-the-sky’.
We do not lose hope of setting the tone at the international level and confirming our country’s status granted long time ago by such jewelry designers as the great Carl Fabergé, who conquered the planet. After all, even the Italians - the trendsetters and leaders of jewelry fashion - admit that after Carl Fabergé, nothing particularly new has happened in the realm of jewelry.
And the soul of this high jewelry art is in Russia!
Galina Semyonova, Editor in Chief of the Russian Bureau, Rough&Polished
