The kaleidoscopic story of malachite is just a chapter in the history of gems. In the Neolithic Age, it served as a primitive dye and simple adornment. The Copper and Bronze Ages used it as ore, natural paint, and in the production of coloured glass, glaze and unpretentious figurines. The end of the sixth millenium B.C. saw in the stone's mass use. Malachite was an initial material in preparation of green mascara being in demand in Egypt. From the beginning of the fourth millenium B.C. and till the Common Era it found application in glazing of steatite ware. Excellent dyes were obtained by mixing malachite with azurite. Malachite was the material so much sought for, that its production soon turned to be an objective of specialized mining activity. Thus malachite intended for production of dyes was dug for on the territory of Bulgaria, in the Aibunar copper mine of the Copper Age. That had been the place of rit-ual uses of malachite; witness the sepulchral vaults with malachite backfill.

Malachite identified as a source of copper gives rise to the production practices of the Copper-Bronze and Bronze Ages. Man looks upon malachite as a rich copper ore. The vivid grass-green of the stone points unmistakably to rich accumulations of metal. Over the long period of two to three millenia there developed mining of malachite-carrying ores in bulk. On the territory of the USSR, back in the fourth millenium B.C., metal makers in the Caucasus had already been well acquainted with malachite. Since the second millenium B.C., production of the Turkmenian oxidized-ore malachite had been continuously unfolding. The middle and end of the second millenium B.C. constitute the first chapter of the Book of the Urals Malachite.

The advent of the Iron age had forced malachite off the scene. But not in the Urals. It was here that this period was marked for new discoveries of workable malachite. The mines of the Kama region, the Timan coast region and the South Urals were exploited on a vast scale.

The history of decorative malachite was considerably less dramatic, though being no less ancient. The oldest mal-achite article is as old as 10500 years - a small pendant from a neolithic sepulchre excavated by archaeologists in North Iran. The malachite artifacts of the Copper and Bronze Age were simple and unpretentious. The Iron age witnessed another attitude towards malachite: now it came mounted in gold set with garnets. It was the beauty of the stone that drew attention.

Antiquity treasured the stone's peculiar patterns and unrivaled variety of colour. Artists turned to malachite, an the nobility favoured the beautiful forms worked in it. The European culture of the Middle Ages inherited but book e\ idence of the past attachment to malachite. The ancient au thors' comments, full of exalted descriptions of its beauty, stories and legends were a mess of fact and fiction, causing malachite to glimmer mysteriously in a halo of charm, magic and hidden meaning.

The medieval miners appreciated malachite as a sure symptom of oxidized copper ores and rich metal accumulations in copper-bearing sandstone.The medieval East and Renaissance encyclopaedists passed over to the Age of Enlightenment their conception of scientifically based approach to malachite as a wonderful phenomenon in the kingdom of minerals.

On the territory of Russia, the emerald green of the Ural malachite, catching the eye of man far back in the Stone Age, marked the path to discoveries of copper-bearing sandstone in the Polar Urals in the 12th century, in the West of the Ural region in the 17th century, and to the high-grade oxidized copper ore deposits of the Middle and South Urals. The malachite crusts encountered in the refuse heaps of ancient workings led to discovery of the famous Gumeshevsky mine. The no less famous Mednorudyansky mine had also been started with the finding of malachite green. These two are recognized as the largest occurences of decorative malachite.

At the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th cen-tury, the centre of mining of workable malachite moved to Russia. The deposits discovered here had been but slightly touched by the ancient cultures and turned out to be really inexhaustible stores. And not only of ore, but also of beauti-ful decorative stone. In the sixties of the 18th century mala-chite could be encountered in practically all large minera-logical studies of Europe. Le Sage at the end of the fifties and abbe Jean Chappe d'Auteroche in 1761 made it an object of their investigations. Abbe d'Auteroche's engravings put out in an edition de luxe familiarized the whole of Eu-rope with the Urals' malachite. Governors and government officials find themselves equally carried away by a malachite collecting mania.

The 19th century had been the golden age in the history of malachite. The Russian, and especially the Urals' malachite ranked highest. At that time, almost every encounter of Russia's trade partners with Russian malachite made a sensation. All the most important and praiseworthy pieces done in malachite had come to life then. The green stone became Russia's national pride and treasure. The first sensational finding of this stone was made in 1835 in "Nadezhnaya" pit of the Mednorudyansky mine. A pocket carrying almost 380 tons splendid decorative malachite contained a monolith weighing over 40 tons. It took nine years to free the gigantic pocket from the body of rock without breaking it, and almost twelve years to take it to pieces and bring malachite to the surface.

Beginning from the first decade of the 19th century, artistic treatment of malachite was prevailing. Due to such natural peculiarities as caverns, numerous inclusions and hollows in the body of stone, monolithic forms had to be rejected. It appeared reasonable to saw it into slabs. Such slabs found application in the classical art of Florentine mosaic, thus enriching the set of a worker in mosaic with fresh green colours on the one hand, and on the other, they brought into life an extensive variety of forms in facing. All kinds of surfaces were glued over with malachite. Malachite facing was practised throughout: from cabinet and boudoir forms to gigantic vases, table-tops, mantels and even columns. The first articles of malachite in Russia were buttons for court-dresses. Their manufacture began in the Urals in 1765 from the Gumeshevsky malachite. In 1782. there appeared the first Russian seal carved in malachite.

The undertaking of the Ural artisans was taken up by private shops in Europe: in Paris, Naples, Rome, Florence, and London they worked to fill the orders of the Ural manufacturers - the Demidovs. In the twenties of the 19th century home manufactories with their own workers in malachite had already come to life in Petersburg. It was here that, encouraged by professional artists, the foundations of the sublime traditions of malachite art in Russia had been laid, followed by the imperial lapidary works in Peterhof and Ekaterinburg.

These years witnessed the fame of malachite spread beyond the borders of Russia. For a space of several decades it eclipsed all other stones standing high in favour as a material for decoration of palaces and in jewellery. In everything that concerned malachite Russia led the fashion. Walls were faced, seals and cameos cut in malachite, it was faceted, malachite parures were studded with emeralds and diamonds, mounted in gold and platinum and ornamented with colour enamels...

The role malachite has played in the history of the Russian and world's stone art may justly be numbered among the wonders of the world. The immortal masterpieces created by Russian artisans in malachite enchant and carry the viewer away with their beauty.

The first important event in the Russian monumental malachite collection was the ceremonial hall of P.N. Demidov's mansion in Petersburg, worked up to the design of Auguste Montferrand. After it came the renowned Malachite Drawing-Room in the Winter Palace. Indeed, it deserves being called a true pearl in the set of interiors of Russian palaces. Supported by white marble pedestals, malachite columns rise in pairs flanking the room and carrying the luxuriously molded ceiling. Disposed in the middle of the butt walls, right opposite one another, are the malachite mantels encircled with a green girdle of pilasters. The large overmantel mirrors extend the boundaries of the room, multiplying the reflections of the malachite decoration colours. The magnificent gilt bronze of column and pilaster capitals and bases, the gold of the ceiling molding, the gilt elaborate finish of the front door, the entire gilding of the hall is perceived as a resplendent mount for malachite. The superbness and elegant reserve of proportions, commensurate with man, make malachite look especially soft and cosy.

The malachite of St. Isaac's Cathedral arises emotions of another kind. The grandeur of the three-tier iconostasis of the Cathedral is enhanced by the powerful crescendo of the stone. Malachite here is used in the facing of eight three-quarter columns representing a most impressive Corinthian order, and of a pair of as large pilasters. The grand malachite pillars outshine everything around. As if it is not the columns that outline the magnificence of the iconostasis, but, on the contrary, the radiance of smalt, the rich and profuse colours of mosaic, the gold, the demure colours of marble, and the deep-blue of lapis-lazuli creep in a luxurious carpet to the feet of the malachite shafts. The green streamers of malachite colours sweep over the whole of the iconostasis. Malachite slabs adorn the dado, contrasting beautifully with the background of brown white-veined marble; the green insets are set off clearly against the white marble of the smaller iconostases, in the chords of arches, the Holy, South and North doors, and in the archivolt over the Holy doors.

There is no other symphony in green like that in the world.

Malachite adorns the Grand Kremlin Palace. As compared with the gorgeousness of the Malachite Drawing-Room and St.Isaac's Cathedral, the Palace's mala-chite may look too demure. It is present only in the form of narrow bands - pilasters adorning the walls and pylons of the Empress' Throne Hall. But upon a closer view one reveals the exclusive mastery of the art of mosaic to be encountered nowhere else. The bands attract the enchanted eye. Every square decimeter of the bands presents a world of highest art. Nowhere else but here, in the Catherine Hall, is the place to disclose the sources of delight and amazement Europe had been struck with as it accepted the art of Russian workers in mosaic. One of the Parisian papers wrote "At present Russia rivals Rome and Florence and is likely to surpass them. In any event, the Russian chef-d'oeuvres in mosaic have left all other works of the kind far behind!" The story of Russian malachite is a tangle of triumphs and dramatic events. The beautiful, to say more, the sumptuous stone very soon became a sign of prestige, a token of wealth. "To afford having a big piece wrought in malachite is synonymous to owning diamonds", wrote the Russian papers of the time. The treasury paid unreasonable prices for the luxury of having malachite. Year after year and day after day the state manufactories worked to aggrandize the malachite treasure of the imperial palace. Witness Hermitage presenting a collection of over two hundred malachite articles of supreme worth, a representative set of palatial malachite. The greatness of the precious symbol of wealth raised the prestige of the ruling house to an unattainable height. St. Isaac's mighty pillars marked the peak in the history of malachite. They glorified malachite in the tale of stone but they meant banishment of malachite from the aristocratic market. Now malachite was seeked by petty bourgeoisie, functionaries and unprivileged citizens. The forms were growing smaller. Large manufactories were replaced by small craftsmen, and the art of malachite cutters gradually sank into oblivion. The final blow came upon the Russian malachite when, after a failure in the severe competition on the chandlery market, large batches of decorative stone piled up in Demidov's stores had been ground and turned to paint. As if in revenge, the seemingly inexhaustible treasures of the Ural mines closed up...

In the 20th century, malachite got into the sphere of scientific research. The study of malachite deepens our knowledge of the processes which give rise to copper and copper-iron ore deposits, offers formulation of the laws of minerals ontogeny, bringing us to grasping the principles of malachite synthesis. And as before, it is full of invariable attraction for collectors.

The stone continues to serve decorative purposes. Only today it is rarely found and jewellers use it but in small forms. The more attractive arises malachite from the dramatic past, from its history. The book is issued in two volumes. The first volume contains the illustrated essays "Mala-chite Through the Centuries" and "Stone Palette", annotated illustrated essays "Nature of Malachite", "Secrets of Lace-Like Pattern", "Malachite - an Image in Stone", and the annotated section "Malachite on Display". All of them are united by the central theme brought out to the volume's title-leaf. It is "Poetics of Stone". "Poetics" here is not just a metaphor. It is a treatise on the theory of stone-cutting art and the conception of expressive potentialities hidden in the stone. The experience of artistic treatment of malachite in Russia is one of the most remarkable chapters in the story of the art.

The essay "Malachite Through the Centuries" shows the most important landmarks in the general history of malachite, and in the history of the Ural malachite, in particular.

The essay "Nature of Malachite" introduces malachite in the abundance of its forms encountered in nature. There the reader will learn of the unique collections of the leading mineralogical museums of the country: the Mininig Institute (Leningrad), the Sergo Ordzhonikidze Institute for Geological Surveying and Exploration (Moscow), the Fersman Min-eralogical Museum and the Mineralogical Museum of the Institute of Mineralogy, Geochemistry and Crystallochemi-stry of Rare Elements (the USSR Academy of Sciences).

The essays "Secrets of Lace-Like Pattern" and "Malachite - an Image in Stone" disclose the expressive potentialities of stone, the nature of its lace-like pattern and beauty lying dormant in the heart of stone and waiting for a cutter or worker in mosaic to bring it to life. It is the story of malachite and its role in art. The text is accompanied with illustrations and comments ("Secrets of Lace-like Pattern", "Malachite - an Image in Stone") involving the mineralogical materials and malachite ontogeny findings in the scope disclosing amply the secrets of the stone's vivid structure and pattern. The text and comments are based on the works of Leningrad ontogenists and the Ural investigators of malachite.

The book owes the articles introduced in section "Malachite on Display" to many museums of the country. Along with the descriptions, the book offers the most interesting collections of malachite to the reader's attention. Some of them are presented completely, others are shown but frag-mentarily. The most ample introduction is made of the col-lection of malachite of the Hermitage. This is the largest - both in the country and abroad - collection counting almost two hundred pieces - the book giving reference to just one-fifth of the whole number. The malachites of the Catherine (Bolshoi Tsarskoselsky) Palace-museum, the Anthropology and Ethnography Museum of Peter the Great (the USSR Academy of Sciences), the State Museum of Eth-nography of the Peoples of the USSR, the Museum of History of Religion and Atheism and the Central State Museum of Revolution of the USSR are presented fully in the book. The collection of malachite of V. Golod has been included almost entirely. All these collections add, each in its own way, to the notion of malachite, and not only of the facts of its history and methods of treatment, but of the social levels of its consumption on the market as well. For example, the Hermitage, the Catherine, Pavlovsky, Ostankinsky Palaces-Museums, the Russian Museum and the Moscow Kremlin Armoury exhibit representative palatial malachite. It was destined to cater to the requirements and tastes of persons of rank and high officials, in other words, it is the malachite of the aristocratic market. The malachite of V. Golod's collection gives the idea of the requirements of another kind. It is the malachite intended for petty bourgeoisie and unpriviledged ranks. The malachite of the Polytechnical Museum in Moscow, some pieces from the collections of the Sverdlovsk museums, the Nizhny-Tagil Museum, the State Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR, the Central State Museum of Kazakhstan exhibit the forms designed to meet the requirements of a still lower social market - of the people of all descriptions.

Several articles serve examples of ritual application of malachite. The most opulently decorated pieces belong to the Nizhny-Tagil Museum. The museum owns tabernacles and an altar cross, unique in their quality. Original forms wrought in malachite can be found among the ceremonial articles from the Museum of History of Religion and Atheism. The Kiev Museum of Historical Jewellery treasures among its exhibits a silver icon-lamp made in Moscow in the 18th century with three faceted malachite insets, set with amethysts and diamond-cut lapis-lazulis. The Kievo-Pechersky monastery keeps fragments of embroidery adorned with pearls and cabochon malachites.

A number of museums possess single pieces wrought of malachite. The Pushkin Fine Arts Museum in Moscow boasts a table with a malachite table-top. The Armoury possesses two timepieces luxuriously decorated with malachite: one with miniature enamel landscapes, and the other, with enamels and precious stones. The Armoury also keeps in its cellars a hand-made string of beads of exquisite beauty. Two study clocks are kept in the Tretyakov Gallery. There is a clock in the possession of the State Literary Museum. The collection of stones of the State Historical Museum in Moscow, closed at present for preservation works, had been rendered inaccessible, although the malachite pieces from its Special store have entered the book. As to the large forms, the museum has a large malachite table and a tombstone all glued over with rough crushed-stone mosaic. An acquaintance with the funds of the Kiev Museum of Russian Art had been a pleasant surprise: an encounter with a pair of large five-branch candelabra in the form of high elegant vases. Their shape bears no analogy to any piece in the known collections, and their mosaics deserve every praise, though their condition is regrettable and the articles need restoration. There are also two malachite cups with bronze bucranium handles, mounted on pedestals, and a table with a mosaic-ornamented table-top featuring large malachite slabs freely scattered over broken-stone facing. Several cups and vases are exhibited in the mineralogical museums: the Mining Institute in Leningrad, the Fersman Mineralogical Museum of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow, and in the Ural Geological Museum.

Russian malachite utilized in fine articles by West-European craftsmen can be found in the collections of Roman and Florentine mosaics of the Hermitage and in the Catherine Palace. The foreign-made articles of malachite are best presented in the collections of the Museum of An-thropology and Ethnography of Peter the Great (the USSR Academy of Sciences), in the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, and in the Material Relics Fund of the Central State Museum of Revolution of the USSR.

Articles of to-day are sparse in the museums. The main part of them is accumulated in the museums of Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk, in the Zagorsk State History and Fine Arts Museum. The richest collection is in the possession of the Ural Geological Museum.

Not all of the malachite articles worth attention have been shown in the book. The author would be glad to acknowledge any information concerning articles of malachite as well as of all other pieces wrought in stone, to be found both in the state and private collections.

The second book, "Malachite. Chronicles. Documents. Commentaries", is a historical and chronical study, where the description of the history of discoveries and methods of artistic treatment of malachite is accompanied with illustrations, documents, commentaries and excerpts from publica-tions long since become bibliographic rarities. The most important events in the history of malachite are described in separate sketches. The volume consists of three parts: "Malachite Recesses", "The Art of Malachite", "At the Ekaterin-burg Lapidary Works", each one treating malachite from a different point of view. The first one delineates malachite as an ore, a mineral and a rock, while the second and third ones describe malachite as a decorative stone. The materials are arranged following the chronological principle.

There are the major deposits of decorative malachite in the Urals, all of them situated in the area of the Middle Urals, within the boundaries of the Sverdlovsk region. They are: the Gumeshevskoye, Mednorudyanskoye, Visokogorskoye (mount Visokaya) and Korovinsko-Reshetnikovskoye deposits. The illustrations of this part reproduce the picture of the Urals of the time of mine proprietors and metallurgical manufactories with all its distinctive features. The photographs, drawings and documents of the past give the idea of malachite's specific quality: its excavation always implies labour-consuming underground works, complicated mining equipment and structures, large-scale ore-handling facilities, and stands beyond comparison with those primitive workings abundantly scattered all over the gem-bearing zone of the Urals which successfully opened the amethyst, tourmaline and topaz cellars. The book presents evidence, obtained not by hearsay, of the exact value of malachite and the place it occupies in material and spiritual culture.

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