The Role of Women Geologists in the Discovery of Diamonds in the Soviet Union and Russia

Women geologists played a key role in the discovery of the first diamond deposits in the Soviet Union: first for placer deposits in the Ural Mountains in the 1930s, and then the first bedrock kimberlite pipes in Yakutia (Siberia) in the 1950s. The Yakutia pipes – the country's first – were the Zarnitsa pipe, discovered by Natalia Sarsadskikh and Larisa Popugaeva, and the Mir pipe, discovered by Natalia Kind and Ekaterina Elagina. Despite these discoveries, the Soviet state either ignored the contributions of these (and other) women, or, worse, deliberately hushed up their achievements, ascribing them to men, while sometimes actually persecuting some of the women. However, ongoing scholarship is, at last, demonstrating, beyond doubt, the fundamental role that these pioneering women geologists played in advancing Soviet and Russian geology and economy.