This archive report was first published on 4 September 2019.
Published on September 4, 2019, Russia's diamond industry is a significant contributor to the global market, with the country producing over 43 million carats of diamonds in 2018. This represents almost 30% of the world's diamond production, with Botswana being the second-largest producer, mining 24.3 million carats.
Within Russia, Alrosa is the world's largest diamond producer by volume, having mined 36.7 million carats in 2018. The company operates 12 mines in remote Siberia, with most of them located in the Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia. This region is five times the size of France but has only a million inhabitants, making it one of the most sparsely populated areas in the world.
Alrosa's 35,000 employees are mostly based in this region, where the company's diamond mines are located. One such mine is the Botuobinskaya open-pit mine, which produced 1.4 million carats of rough diamonds in 2018. I had the opportunity to visit this mine during a recent trip to Russia and witnessed firsthand the harsh yet breathtaking environment of Siberia.
