Katie Warren/Business Insider
A diamond mine in Siberia operated by Alrosa.
- Russia is the world's largest producer of diamonds by volume.
- It can take months or even years for a diamond to make it from a mine to becoming a piece of jewelry. After being mined in a remote region of Siberia, a diamond is taken to an ore treatment facility, where the gem is extracted from the ore.
- Then, it goes to a sorting facility 200 miles away in the diamond mining town of Mirny, where the stones are sorted by size, color, and quality - both manually and via sorting machines.
- Finally, the diamond goes to the polishing and cutting facility in Moscow, a journey that's a nearly six-hour flight or a drive of almost 6,000 miles.
- Alrosa mostly sells rough diamonds in bulk to jewelers, but its largest diamonds are polished and sold at international auctions.
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Russia is the world's largest producer of diamonds by volume.
More than 43 million carats were mined in Russia in 2018, with most coming from the Yakutia region of Siberia.
So far this year, the country's largest diamond company, Alrosa, has sold more than $2.4 billion worth of diamonds.
On a recent trip to Russia, I got the chance to follow the journey a diamond takes, from an open-pit mine in Siberia, to the ore enrichment factory, to sorting facilities in a diamond mining town of Mirny, to polishing facilities in Moscow.
Here's the journey of a Russian diamond, from being dug out of the frozen ground in Siberia to selling for millions at the world's biggest jewel auctions.