Arthur Androsov, Doctor of Engineering, Professor, a diamond industry veteran and inventor, gave this interview to Rough&Polished.

Could you share your point of view on the state of Yakutia’s economy and future role played in it by the diamond industry?

In due course the leading role played by ALROSA in the development of Yakutia’s economy will gradually decrease. It is quite natural that the company cannot be a “milking cow” and then the oil and gas industry in Yakutia is gathering pace as well as gold mining; it is also necessary to develop extraction of rare-earth elements and color gems needed for developing the national economy of this country and Yakutia.

As a person who worked with ALROSA for many years, could you say a few words about possible prospects of its further development?

Prospects for the company’s development may be traced in diversification of its activity not only in Russia, but also abroad, in increasing its efficiency while working out deep horizons in the existing deposits based on modernized mining techniques, in complex processing of diamond-bearing ores coupled with simultaneous extraction of accompanying minerals and rare-earth elements.

You are the author of some of the inventions introduced into the diamond industry of Yakutia. Could you provide some particulars about innovations in the diamond industry?

In my opinion, the diamond-mining industry of Yakutia currently needs the following innovations:

- It has to develop and introduce combined techniques for working out deep-seated pipes by way of both open and underground pits and mainly slant shafts when completing operations in open-cast mines.

- It has to develop nonconventional mining and dressing techniques to spare diamond crystals.

- It has to recycle mining waste, including deep pits in open-cast mines.

- It has also to develop efficient methods and techniques for working out low-volume ore bodies, including diamond-bearing ores under the fields, near them and under the edges of open-cast mines simultaneously recovering accompanying color gems and rare-earth elements.

Which of your inventions are used in practice?

ALROSA’s open-cast mines are using two new technological solutions under issued inventor certificates saying I am one of their authors, and these are “Method of Tapping Nonoperational Edges in Open-Cast Mine” and “Method of Re-activating Temporary Edges in Open-Cast Mines.” Using these techniques proved to be efficient enough to earn several million dollars. These inventions continue to be applied up to now.

What are you working on now, what are your plans?

First of all, as a veteran Russian inventor, I am trying to pass on my practical knowledge to the young; secondly, I help other inventors to work out abilities to formulate their ideas bringing them to their logic end in solving tasks and generating new approaches. There are a lot of problems to be solved – for instance, it is high time to switch over to an entirely new method of rock destruction using laser installations. In the future this will permit to raise manifold the efficiency of mining operations, especially in the diamond-mining industry where the problem of preserving diamond crystals at the extraction phase is painfully prominent.

This country’s strategy of further development is aimed at modernization where innovation plays an important role. In what way will it impact generating and implementing inventions?

This is a right course aimed at upgrading the whole national economy. I do not see it without inventions introduced by Russian scientists and experts producing various modes, devices and substances. As it was in the Soviet period, to boost innovative activity it is necessary to offer incentives at an appropriate state level, without which technical progress is impossible.

You are teaching students at local academic institutions reading lectures in a number of mining subjects. Could you say a few words about the level of training received by modern specialists and about intergenerational continuity?

The level of training received by students in mining specialties leaves much to be desired. It is necessary to recognize that the level of training given to specialists at the Yakut high schools is insufficient, which is proved by absence of skills in technical creativity in students since up to now, unlike other high schools in this country, they have not generated even a single technical solution for patenting in Russia. Today this problem is even more acute, as it is impossible to pursue modernization within the market economy without profound knowledge, i.e. creating top-level innovative designs able to compete worldwide. Probably, this problem will be given higher attention after establishment of the Northeast Federal University.

Rough&Polished from Yakutsk