The BaikalKvartsSamotsvety company
is just half an hour drive from Irkutsk; it's located in a small village called Smolenshchina. The history of this enterprise
starts in 1966. Back then, it was a survey crew working under the USSR Ministry of Geology. It discovered more than ten deposits of jade, charoite, lazurite and other semi-precious stones. Right now, there are around 56 jade
mining factories in Russia. Most of them are located in Buryatia. More than ten of those were discovered by geologists working for BaikalKvartsSamotsvety. The Ospinskoye mining factory where, under a
license valid until 2024, BaikalKvartsSamotsvety surveys and extracts mineral resources, is also located in Buryatia. This is also the place of death of Evgeny Didikov, an engineer whose family failed to receive the compensation of forty thousand dollars from BaikalKvartsSamotsvety.
BaikalKvartsSamotsvety's revenue exceeded 3 million dollars in 2019. For example, the company's website offers a jade
ring for 161 dollars; and a large writing
set with the coat of arms and the flag of Russia for more than 6700 dollars. However,
data on BaikalKvartsSamotsvety's international trade show that its chief business is export transactions.