DUSHANBE, August 3, 2010, Asia-Plus — The government has allocated a 500,000 somoni loan to the state unitary enterprise, Chamast (Amethyst), for resumption of work at the gem spinel mines, Kuhi Lal, in Gorno Badakhshan, the Chamast director Donaboy Toshayev, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
“To-date, we have received 200,000 somoni and under the agreement representatives from the board of treasury at the Ministry of Finance have the right to visit the deposit in order to be convinced of targeted use of the credit,” Toshayev said.
“The loan bears no interest rate and we will repay it by raw materials from the Kuhi Lal deposit,” the Chamast director said.
Kuhi Lal”s “balas ruby” (spinel) mines are among the oldest in the world, with the first recorded mention being that of the famous Central Asian polymath, al Biruni (973–1048). In 1970, Ms. Mira Bubnova of the Ahmadi Donish Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography (Tajik Academy of Sciences) found evidence that the mine was operating as early as the seventh century AD. Kuhi Lal is thought to have produced many of the most famous spinels in the world, including the Black Prince”s Ruby and the Timur Ruby. But because similar stones from these mines have not been documented in the modern era, the question of whether these famous stones came from Kuhi Lal or perhaps another locality is still debated in gemological circles.
Chamast is the only enterprise in Tajikistan that specializes in mining and processing precious stones. Founded at the Ministry of Geology of Tajik SSR in 1939, the enterprise is engaged in exploring, mining and processing precious and semi-precious stones. Chamast has licenses for exploration of the onyx marble deposit, Patru, and the amethyst deposit, Selbu, in Shahrinav district, as well as the lapis lazuli deposit, Lojvard-Dara, in Roshtqala district (Gorno Badakhshan) and the spinel deposit, Kuhi Lal, in Ishkashim district (Gorno Badakhshan).
