'Tears of the Gods'.
By: I saw a video about a trip to Siberia by correspondent Thabang Motsei and decided to show how diamonds are mined using the example of the 'Mir' open pit in Yakutia.
The Republic of Sakha-Yakutia is the diamond capital of Russia, there are more than a hundred diamond deposits in it, the republic covers an area like eight France :) And yes, these are the very places where the temperature does not rise above -40C in winter.
The diamond deposit was discovered in 1955 and is 535 m deep and 1.2 km in diameter - more than the Canyon Diablo Crater in Arizona. Open pit mining of diamondiferous kimberlite ore was discontinued in June 2001. From 2009 to August 2017, ore was mined only at the 'Mir' underground mine, but it is currently flooded due to an accident.
The largest diamond found in Russia was mined in the 'Mir' open pit on December 23, 1980. It weighs 342.5 carats (over 68 grams).
Over the years of development by the open-pit method, diamonds were mined from the deposit, according to unofficial data, for 17.000.000.000 US dollars, about 350 million m³ of rock were removed.
Production is over 100 kilograms of diamonds per year.
The 'Mir' mine is not the largest; it is much larger than the 'Udachnaya' ('Fortunate') pipe quarry, which measures 1600 x 2000 meters on the surface and 640 meters deep.
The word 'Mir' in Russian means both the 'world' and the 'peace'.