A profound impression was left in all the participants of the CIBJO Congress by the presentation of Yulia Solodova, who has so many degrees and accomplishments that it is impossible to remember all of them at once: the candidate of geological and mineralogical sciences, assistant professor, author of dozens of textbooks, Academician of the International Academy of Mineral Resources, Member of the German Gemological Society, General Manager of Gemological Institute, an autonomous non-profit organization for additional vocational training. All this refers to one and the same person, whose opinion is highly appreciated in the jewellers’ community.
During the session of the commission of experts on marketing and education, Yulia Solodova in her presentation drew the attention to the gemological education in Russia.
She told that Russia has very strong historical traditions in the jewellery art and jewellery business, various gemological and geological studies were done. Our own gemology appeared after discovery of the diamond deposits in Siberia, when diamond mining started there and then also the sorting and treatment of rough diamonds. And the word ‘gemology’ was strange for our specialists when we started to introduce it. It was necessary to get them used as there were technologists and experts in many organizations who were not used to gemology. This is how the term ‘gemology’ appeared in Russia in the 1960-s.
In Russia, the training system of jewelers and gemologists comprises several levels. On the one hand, it is training of workers to carry out diamond processing and manufacture of jewellery. On the other hand, like in all countries in the world the gemologists are trained at the institutes and universities and this type of training was launched around 1974-75 on the initiative of the Gokhran and ‘Сrystal’, a Moscow-based factory processing rough and polished diamonds. It was the time when the Moscow Geological and Prospecting Institute (later renamed to become the Russian State Geological and Prospecting University) was chosen to be the place where at first the specialists for rough diamonds sorting and processing were trained and later on, a gemology department was established in 1994.
Nowadays, the graduate gemologists are also trained at the Moscow State University and in other 15 higher education establishments where the technologists are trained in material processing - first of all, of gem quality precious stones and metals.
Starting from the 1970-s, additional education has become popular to improve one’s qualification and train people having a secondary special or higher education also wanting to work in this field to get this profession. The Russian Gemological Institute can be an example, it implements both Russian programmes and since 1996, it has its branch in Russia according to the agreement with the Gemological Institute of America.
We keep a close eye on what is going in the world, says Yulia Solodova. We are very much concerned that, for example, so far the system of diamond grading has not been completely upgraded, although great work is in progress.
We are very interested in those serious problems existing in the technology, she says, stressing that now it is necessary to timely improve one’s qualification and every gemologists realizes this.
In Yulia Solodova’s opinion, the World Jewellery Confederation is an organization that reasonably and in good faith does its best to unite the efforts of the gemologists and jewelers of all the countries by establishing the rules of behavior of gemologists and jewelers, and all these rules should be observed if one really wants to do this business and go in gemology.
Veronicа Novoselovа, Rough&Polished
