Chrysoberyl

specimen number:
1052667

location:
Izumrudnye Kopi, Malyshevo, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia

description:
Classic old Russian thumbnail specimen, this a lustrous green twinned chrysoberyl specimen. Slightly translucent, this does exhibits a color change as seen at the end of the video. In great condition. The specimen comes with an antique label as shown at the end of the video, this label giving an acquisition date of 1909.

The world's first and most famous alexandrite crystals were discovered in the Izumrudnye Kopi (Emerald Mines) of the Tokovaya River region near Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains of Russia. Geologically, these rare chrysoberyl specimens are found within phlogopite glimmerite schists that formed at the contact zone between beryl-bearing granite pegmatites and ultramafic host rocks. The presence of chromium, sourced from the ultramafic rocks, gives Russian alexandrite its legendary color-change property, shifting from emerald-green in daylight to raspberry-red under incandescent light. Historically, the discovery occurred in the early 1830s, and the mineral was named in 1834 to honor the future Tsar Alexander II on his sixteenth birthday. Systematic mining and quarrying reached a peak between the 1840s and the end of the 19th century, with the most productive operations located at the Malysheva (formerly Mariinsky) and Krasnobolotny mines. While the primary focus of these Uralian sites shifted toward industrial beryllium and emerald production during the Soviet era, specialized extraction of high-quality alexandrite has continued intermittently. Through 2026, the Tokovaya district remains the historic type locality, though museum-quality crystals from the original 19th-century finds are now exceptionally rare and highly sought after by global collectors.

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