FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[John S. White]

Another great new book. The Russians who publish Mineralogical Almanac have just come out with a new issue, but it is in a different format and more closely resembles a book than a journal. It is titled "Russian Mineral Classics" and the publishers refer to it as a photo album. It contains excellent photos of classical mineral specimens from famous Russian localities in the Urals, the Kola Peninsula, Siberia and the Far East, including the Ural emerald mines, Murzinka, Ilmeny, Lovozero, Khibiny, Dalnegorsk and many others. There is an excellent text about each of these regions by Dr. Igor V. Pekov, who was in charge of producing this special issue. It is in both English and Russian. The detailed locality information makes it the most useful reference seen yet for Russian mineral locality information. It is a fat book of over 100 pages and is beautifully printed. A "must buy" for anyone interested in Russian minerals.

[Joan Kureczka]

Yes, Jesse brought the book back from Denver. We were pleased to see an older photo in it of one of my favorites, here in his updated photo of Jesse's. The piece had been cleaned sometime in between Michael Lebov's photo in the new book, and our purchase of the specimen in 2002 at the TGMS show.

[B. Chandrasekhar]

I wonder if the photos in this "new" book have just been recycled from the various Mineralogical Almanac volumes?

[Joan Kureczka]

I think its a mix, but the photos are much larger and better format than I've seen in the older issues. Most are a single mineral specimen per page.

[John S. White]

By way of "full disclosure" I should point out that I am on the editorial board of Mineralogical Almanac so some may suspect that I am biased with regard to my reaction to this book. Just the same, I feel certain that anyone seeing it will agree with my comments.

[Jesse Fisher]

Michael, Ludmilla and the the rest of the staff at the Mineralogical Almanac have done a marvelous job of documenting and promoting Russian minerals for the European and American mineral collecting communities. I am sure it is no small feat to do this from post-Soviet Russia where the mineral collecting community is likely much more sparse than we enjoy here in the West. The quality of production on this issue is outstanding and I would recommend it to all (regardless of John's obvious conflict of interest on the matter).

[Jordi Fabre]