Some points to ponder

I think that overall the Russian gold industry is in serious trouble. It’s obvious the bulk of Russian gold through 1930-1960 came from the placer gold fields of the Soviet Far East and that the source of this gold is coming to an end. They are scraping the bottom of the barrel and it shows. While flying around the Soviet Far East I could see that a fair amount of exploration work including drilling and trenching has been done over the area and if the best thing they can come up with is the kind of deposit we saw, it spells trouble.

The breakdown in the economic system also means that they are not getting the spare parts or even the fuel or people to continue to carry on in such a remote area. One can’t believe any of the figures that we were given for two reasons: nobody really knows the truth and even if they do they won’t tell you. .

The highest paid worker in the Russian gold field happens to be a full-fledged underground miner who earns about 1,700-1,800 rubles per month which converted at 32-to-1 means that he is earning less than US$50 per month. Compare that with the lowest paid black South African miner who gets 700 rand per month, converted at 0.3 to the dollar is more than US$200 per month. And by the way, the South African gets room and board on top of that. All the important jobs in the mine or mill are held by women. The hoistman position, for example, in North America is probably the most prized job and the most responsible job in any mine. In Russia they wouldn’t dream of letting a man access this job as more often than not they show up drunk at work and they drop the cage and kill people. Therefore, that particular position is always filled by women as well as the gold room and the bullion pour are filled by women with guns on their hips.

There is an incredible amount of gold used in dental work in Russia. Practically every Russian over 20 I saw had at least 1-3 gold teeth and I don’t know whether or not it is a sign of wealth or just the fact they don’t have any alloy cheaper than gold that can be used in dental work, but certainly a great deal of gold in Russia is used in dentistry. They build most of their pipeline and piping in the mill with titanium steel so that it will last for 100 years. The only problem here is that technology changes every 15-20 years and instead of removing the pipe, they just build more on top so that you may end up with two, three or four layers of pipe, of which only one is actually working.