Author 1:
Name & Surname: Kashuba S. G.
Company: Union of Gold Producers of Russia (Moscow, Russia)
Work Position: Chairman
Contacts: kashuba_ugpr@bk.ru

Author 2:
Name & Surname: Leskov M. I.
Company: Union of Gold Producers of Russia (Moscow, Russia)
Work Position: Member of the Board

kashuba_ugpr@bk.ru

Russia has been producing gold on a commercial level for over 300 years. Since the discovery of the richest gold placers in the first half of the 19th century, Russia rapidly came out on top of gold production and kept the leadership up to the discovery and large-scale development of Witwatersrand Gold Basin in South Africa in the early 20th century. Nevertheless, Russia and later on Soviet Union was fast the world’s second gold producer right after the Republic of South Africa. After the dissolution of USSR, Russia retained gold output at little higher than 100 t per year by 1998 versus the earlier annual production of 160 t. All of 11 production associations (PA) curtailed abruptly gold production, without actual and sufficient financial and economic independence and being 100% state-owned property. An exception were gangs of gold diggers that appeared in the Soviet period and kept the pattern of cooperative property but they were not entirely autonomous once being tightly integrated in the structure of PA. Stoppage of government financing and, thus, public purchasing of gold in the mid-1990s resulted in the extension of influence of private banks and growth in segment of private ownership in gold production [3]. The new circumstances gradually cleared the way for production with private domestic and foreign investment. Concurrently with dying-out PA, more blistering production emerged in the previously operating and entirely new gold fields, which drastically changed the pattern of the industry and promoted strong recovery and, then, gain in the productivity. That enabled Russia to jump from the 6th–7th place in the world 7–8 years ago up to the position of the world’s second gold producer in 2014, jostling the former leaders and giving way only to China. Having adverted to the modern history of the gold mining industry, the authors endeavor to dip into future to open up opportunities for the readers to view the horizons of gold production in Russia.

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