By Elena Koren
The Assay Chamber of Russia, a federal government institution celebrated 317 years of assay supervision in Russia. A media-tour was timed to coincide with this date attended by news persons from industry publications and journalists of the Rossyiskaya Gazeta, the RBC and Moskva-24 TV channels, as well as by Ryazan’s Gorod TV Channel and such news agencies as Interfax, Reuter, Prime, Finec, the Culture.RF Portal and others. This was a landmark event taking into account the closed nature of this institution’s activity.
The event started at the State Inspectorate of Assay Supervision, Moscow and the Moscow Region Department, where the journalists were briefed on the activities of the organization, on the special features of the assay supervision and regulatory activities in the sector of precious metals and precious gems.
The guests were welcomed by Viktor Obrezumov, Senior Deputy of the FGI ‘Assay Chamber of Russia’, who thanked the audience for their interest in the event. In fact, until recently the government activity in this sphere was practically unknown to the people in the country because it did not get mass media coverage.
“At present, things have changed. In particular, the idea has come up to arrange a media-tour coincided with the 317th anniversary of the Assay Chamber as a unified state system. The professionals know perfectly well that the main task of the Assay Chamber is to protect the rights of the manufacturers and consumers of jewellery and other products made of precious metals, including protection against unfair competition. The Russian government in the name of the Assay Chamber should guarantee quality of the metal in the pieces to our citizens and establish clear rules and regulations used in the operations with the most specific goods in history.
Every day, up to five thousand pieces are mechanically hallmarked in the workshops of the State Inspectorate of Assay Supervision in Moscow and the Moscow Region, and the same number of pieces are laser hallmarked here. The journalists saw the jewellery assaying and hallmarking process including that with the use of innovation hallmark protection methods. To maximize the reliability of hallmarking and minimize the possibility of falsification, the laser inscription of a barcode near the hallmark is being introduced that has special information regarding the hallmark protection, which provides the hallmark with a unique identification feature that allows tracking and identification of a piece at any stage.
The functions of the Assay Chamber of Russia are rather wide and are not limited to the state control over the production, extraction, processing, usage, storage and accounting of precious metals and precious gemstones. The Assay Chamber carries out assaying, analysis and state hallmarking of all the jewellery and household goods made of the Russian-made precious metals, as well as those brought into the Russian Federation for selling. One of the main lines of activities of the Assay Chamber is the control so that the organizations involved into the operations with precious metals and precious gems satisfy the requirements of the Russian Federal law ‘On Countermeasures to Combat Legalization of Illegally Obtained Proceeds and Financing of Terrorism’.
Within the framework of its activities, the Assay Chamber of Russia carries out voluntary certification of diamonds that is – together with the gemological grading of polished diamonds - done by the Moscow and Yakutsk Gemological Certification Centres accredited for the technical competence in compliance with the GOST requirements. During the certification, the qualified expert gemologists verify the nature of rough diamonds and assess the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of polished diamonds.
The last but not the least stage of the media-tour was the visit to the AO PZTsM (Priokskyi Non-ferrous Metals Plant). After a 6-hour bus trip and quick sightseeing of the town of Kasimov that deserves more and special attention of the visitors, the media pool was accommodated in the Plant’s health resort. The next morning, they were met at the plant’s checkpoint.
The most fascinating process was shown to the journalists - how gold is being melt and liquid gold is being cast into moulds to make bullions. But the journalist were also equally impressed by the state-of-the-art laboratory equipment by world leading companies, clean and light workshops, efficient air conditioning (in the rooms where concentrated acids are used one can breath as if in a good office), substantial social benefits package and high salaries (workers’ monthly average salary is ₽68 000). After the tour of the plant that lasted longer than anticipated, Vladimir Son’kin, Director of the PZTsM, and the representatives of the Assay Chamber of Russia - Dmitry Zamyshlyaev, Deputy Head, and Yulia Izotova, press-secretary - answered the journalists’ questions.
All types of precious metals undergo refining at this Refinery – gold, silver, platinum, palladium. It is worth mentioning that all the products of the plant were awarded the ‘Good Delivery’ status by the London Bullion Market Association. According to the Refinery executives, these diplomas ensure 20-30 percent higher prices for the Plant’s products. The PZTsM is in the world list of refineries.
It is surprising that in a small old town that did not avoid the disappointing turn of events experienced by many remote Russian provincial towns – the post-Soviet ravage and urban blight – the Refinery is developing successfully and augmenting its potential and is one of the two largest refineries in Russia (the second one is in Krasnoyarsk).
The Refinery performance has doubled over the last 5 years while the personnel number remained the same – about 600 employees. The current PZTsM innovation development programme for 2012-2020 stipulated the implementation of high technologies, higher refinery utilization rate, higher efficiency and environmental sustainability and building up of an own research-and-production basis. And all this is under the implementation already: the Refinery is increasing its labour productivity through the introduction of own unique technologies of refining the precious metals, it makes good progress, and its performance demolishes the conventional view that the state-own enterprises a priori cannot compete with private ones in efficiency.
The media-tour lasted for two days and opened much new information to the journalists. The general pleasant impression about everything they saw was augmented by the hospitality, openness of the media-tour organizers and hosts as well as their readiness to co-operate with the media. We can only wish successful development to the AO PZTsM and the Russian assay supervisors and express our hope to continue our co-operation.
