When talking about the natural resources of Donetsk region, the first thing that comes to mind is, of course, coal. Not everyone knows that the industrial land is also abundant in fields of kaolin, salt, mercury ore, zircon, and graphite. And quite a few geologists and regional ethnographers are aware that the old Donetsk ridge hides more generous deposits, specifically — gold.
Scientific debates on the origin of the biggest artifact once found in the steppe’s burial hills, the precious Scythian pectoral from the collection of the National Museum of Historical Treasures, are still continuing. It is known that the spectral analysis of metal from the massive royal adornment had shown a significant difference from the handiwork of all known jewelry centers of antiquity. Donetsk researchers have elaborated a daring hypothesis: the pectoral was produced by the local craftsmen from gold that was mined exactly in the Donbas.
PEOPLE DYING FOR METAL
Archaeological findings show that yellow metal was being smelt many centuries ago in the so called Bakhmut valley and near the Naholne tableland. The remains of high-quality, as for those times, smelting furnaces and foundry accessories were excavated there. There are even more “young” historical arguments. As the professor of the Donetsk National Technical University Borys Panov says, at the beginning of the last century the legends about the gold mines of Scythian rulers provoked a risky venture by a local entrepreneur Glebov. Having persuaded the state treasury that his project was realizable, he managed to receive a huge credit in the amount of three million tsarist rubles. The entrepreneur invited foreign specialists and with their help he built several mines and a processing plant near the modern city of Krasny Luch. Unfortunately, after obtaining 8 kilograms of gold and 16 kilograms of accompanying silver from the ore, Glebov went bankrupt. The further destiny of this pioneer of modern national gold mining was tragic: Glebov either shot himself or fell victim to his careless handling of a weapon while hunting. Since then, the gold-bearing Sharp Hillock periodically attracted those seeking easy money and dreaming to make a fortune from the hidden treasures of the Donetsk land. But all attempts ended in failure. Eventually, after the Soviet government censored the information about the region’s natural deposits under a seal of conspiracy, the local gold was almost forgotten. The inhabitants of those places used to tell stories about road workers using rubble chippings containing gold to cover holes in extremely broken roads during the destructive 1990s…
“Certainly, there is gold in those places,” professor Panov explains, “though it neighbors arsenic, which complicates refinement and makes the process more expensive. Some serious environmental problems appear. Still, modern technologies can deal with this. Moreover, according to our geological explorations, there is a ledge located at the depth of one and a half to two kilometers, containing virgin, almost pure metal. And, as we think, there is a lot of gold, up to 20 tons, as much as all the previously discovered reserves in Ukraine. Once again, there is one but — our country has never built such deep mines. However, in India and the Republic of South Africa there are widely known examples where gold and diamonds are extracted from below two or three kilometers. Maybe, it would make sense to offer concessions to foreign companies, or create a joint venture in order to get to the yellow metal.”
“THE UNTOUCHABLE STOCK?”
A few years ago Ukraine was supposed to develop its gold mining sector by tackling the Bobrykove deposit in the Donetsk region, as well as others in Transcarpathia and the Lower Dnipro area. However, the work soon ground down to a halt, despite the fact that geologists were ready to point to 17 more locations on the industrial region’s map that might contain at least as much gold as Glebov’s mine. By the way: the very same thing happened to the display of diamonds in the southern Donbas. According to the head of Azov Complex Geological Party Anatolii Hrebeniuk, already in the 1890s a Donetsk geologist detected microscopic diamond crystals in the sands of the Azov Sea. Research wells were drilled in the surroundings of the Volnovakha district center. Since then, the researchers have detected nearly a dozen of so called kimberlite pipes, promising to be rich in diamonds. Samples were shown to the experts of the famous company De Beers, which specializes in the diamond industry, who came to an optimistic conclusion: “Keep looking, the business is worth it.” However, the financing fell through and the project was suspended.
BURYING ONESELF IN GARBAGE
However, the Donbas is such a unique land in terms of geology that one doesn’t need to go deep under ground for its uncountable riches — it’s sometimes enough to climb a handmade dump heap.
“It is known that microscopic particles of gold are found in the coal excavated by the Donetsk mines,” says Panov. “Still, its extraction is economically unprofitable. Ashes that remain after burning anthracite are quite another matter. Or old dump layers. And, believe me, this is not academic fantasy. Several years ago, the administration of one TPP in Afghanistan wasn’t afraid to spend money on a module refining plant that is being powered from the local dumps. And now every morning they put a one-kilogram gold bullion on the plant director’s table. It seems as if the Donetsk ridge is teasing those that walk upon his uncountable riches each day: ‘Come, bend down! Come, pick up! You’ll be rich…’”
