Hot Siberian (3 page)

Politically, the men at the top of the System were congenital conservatives. In their view anyone who was even left-handed did not deserve sympathy or trust. They made the Soviets pay dearly for the diamonds they needed. And whenever the Soviets complained, they upped the price. The Soviets resented being gouged but had no recourse. For the time being they could only grit and pay. The long run would be a different matter.

Soviet geologists went hunting. In, of all places, Siberia. They had noticed the geological similarities between certain areas of Yakut Siberia and the diamond-rich regions of South Africa. Hundreds of geologists tromped back and forth across the frozen Siberian wastes, but it was not until 1954 that a woman geologist named Larissa Popugaieva made the find. In the basin of the Vilyui River she came upon a kimberlite pipe, the sort of extinct volcanic outlet that contains the kind of rock in which diamonds are found. Soon after that initial discovery, numerous other diamond-bearing pipes were found in that Yakut area.

Larissa Popugaieva was declared a Hero of Socialist Labor and awarded the Order of Lenin.

However, finding diamonds was one thing, getting them out of the ground another. Particularly this Siberian ground. It was permafrost, constantly frozen as much as a mile deep, a result of the fierce climate that went to 80 below zero Fahrenheit. Summers there were as brief as a month and, as if overcompensating, presented sweltering temperatures that often exceeded 100 degrees. Such heat transformed the skin of the land into mushy green bogs above which mosquitoes clouded like thick, black, buzzing mists.

Mining had never been attempted under such adverse conditions. The extreme cold changed the molecular behavior of substances, turned lubricants into glue, caused rubber to become brittle as dry bone, and made many metals fracture into fragments when asked to take the merest strain. Machinery was paralyzed. The human machinery as well. Parts balked, muscles lost their elasticity, nostrils clogged with ice.

For eleven years, from 1955 to 1966, the Soviets hacked at the frozen ground, grubbed for their diamonds. Many who worked the open-cut mines died from hypothermia. Pneumonia was almost as common as head colds. Frostbite caused casualty after casualty. There were summer instances when men or women or couples strayed too far from camp. Seduced by the sun to remove their clothes, they were literally driven mad by mosquitoes.

Those who fared best in the frigid climate were the Chukchis. Genetically connected to the Alaskan Inuit and in appearance greatly resembling them, the Chukchis came from the easternmost, northernmost corner of the Soviet Union: the Bering Sea coast and Pegiyemel. They were the last natives of Siberia to submit to Russian rule. Fierce fighters, they held off the Russian army for over a century. While other workers at the mines wore fur-lined hats and gloves, the Chukchis went about with their heads and hands bare. It wasn't that their skins were thicker or possessed an extra, anomalous thermal layer. They just thought of the cold differently. It was to them an old familiar enemy they would never totally give in to. The Russians enlisted as many Chukchis as they could to work the diamond mines, and paid them well. The difficulty was keeping them on the job. As soon as a Chukchi had earned enough to buy the number of reindeer or harpoon points he had in mind, he'd head for home, just walk off across the frozen waste as though he had no doubt of getting there.

Despite the many obstacles, the Soviets managed to dig up more than enough diamonds to meet their industrial and technological needs. In 1965, for example, Soviet production was a million carats. But it was, unquestionably, the hard way to go, and there were those high in the government who thought it a shame that fine, gem-quality diamonds were being used on the studded ends of oil-drilling bits.

It was proposed that an expenditure be made in rubles and manpower to improve the mining methods of the Siberian diamond fields. That the country should take full financial advantage of its diamond resources was the contention. The proposal caused some members of the Central Committee to set their jaws and shore up their minds. They were against having anything at all to do with diamonds. Staunch party hard-liners, they argued that diamonds by their very nature smacked of capitalism, that diamonds and exploitation of workers had always gone hand in hand. It would be hypocritical for Russia, in its role of model Marxist state, to be involved in such business. Instead, to meet its needs, could not Russia manufacture synthetic diamonds at a more reasonable cost?

The debate was bitter and drawn-out. The diehards were eventually thwarted. The Secretariat of the Central Committee approved. Next it was up to Soviet engineers.

What the engineers came up with was a solution that could not have been more simple nor more audacious. Inasmuch as the outside cold was such a physical drawback, then mine the diamonds from the inside. Enclose the mine and erect an installation directly above it, one that could house all the various phases of the diamond-mining process, from the excavation and crushing of the ore to the extracting and separating of the precious stones. The installation would also provide housing for the workers and administrative personnel, complete facilities.

It was asked: What about the permafrozen ground? How would that be dealt with?

With the exhaust heat of jet engines. The temperature and texture of the ground could be brought to a point where it would be normally workable.

In the process of recovering diamonds was it not necessary to wash the crushed ore? Where would such a huge quantity of water, a veritable lake of it, be kept without it freezing?

To answer that problem a new recovery method had been developed, one that used X-rays. As the mixture of crushed ore and diamonds was conveyed along a belt, it would be scrutinized under fluoroscopic light. The diamonds, because of their elemental makeup, would be easily distinguishable. They would show up in various bright shades of blue, green, yellow-orange, or icy white and could, therefore, easily be picked out.

A scale model of the proposed installation was shown to the members of the Central Committee Secretariat, so that they understood how extensive a project this would be. Its structures would cover an area of nearly thirty acres.

So everything would be under one roof, even whatever was needed for cutting and polishing the diamonds?

No. There'd been no allowance for those finishing phases. Why shouldn't the cutting and polishing be done someplace with a more compatible climate, in Kiev or Minsk or possibly even some place as far south as Tbilisi?

Tbilisi? The Secretariat scoffed at the suggestion of mixing Georgians and diamonds, the Georgians with their well-founded reputation for, to put it tactfully, sleight of hand. The unanimous decision of the Secretariat was that the finishing of the diamonds should be done on the spot. The Siberian remoteness would in itself serve as a security measure. Employees would not be going in and out every day the way they did at other workplaces. Mind, at some regular factories in Moscow and Leningrad the pilfering rate ran as high as 10 percent. Such wrongdoing, though not sanctioned, was tolerated, since it increased the workers' satisfaction with their jobs. However, to tempt them with diamonds would be a different matter altogether, actually unfair.

Agreed.

Approved.

The installation at Aikhal got off the ground.

Literally off the ground. The entire thing, except for the mine-shaft enclosure, had to be constructed on pilings that extended twelve feet above the surface. Enormous steel beams were sunk twenty feet deep into the permafrost and held in place by the almost instantaneous freezing of the slush that was filled in around them. More solid than concrete. The pilings were essential to keep human-generated heat from melting the ground and making the installation sink. It was not uncommon in northern Siberia to see wooden houses sunk down into the tundra to their windowsills.

The enormous energy and millions of rubles the Soviets invested in the Aikhal installation were well spent. In 1971, its first year of operation, it came up with two million carats of diamonds, of which 37 percent were gem-quality stones. Soon thereafter, other installations similar to Aikhal were built in and around the Vilyui River Basin. However, Aikhal continued to be the richest deposit. By 1975 Aikhal was producing five million carats a year and showing no signs of depletion. Unlike most diamond-bearing pipes, those at Aikhal seemed to yield more as they were dug deeper.

Typically, the Soviets kept their production figures secret. Why should they let anyone know they were stockpiling? In 1977, the United States Bureau of Mines estimated diamond production of the entire world at just under forty million carats, or almost nine tons. Only slightly more than 25 percent of this production was said to be of gem quality. Little did the bureau know. The Soviets could have tacked on another fifteen million carats. Three and a half tons. The Russians were up to their beards in diamonds.

The old axiom that says timing can be everything was never more fitting.

The period during which the Russians were enjoying such success with their Siberian mines coincided almost to the very year with the time when the System lost its control over its diamond holdings in Africa. By then, 1978, Rupert Churcher had been at the head of the System for six years. While coping with Africa he'd kept an eye on the Russians and was aware of the small amounts of high-quality diamond rough they were bringing to the market every once in a while. Churcher did not know for certain what quantity of such rough the Russians were capable of producing, but he put stock in the formidable figures that the System's security people came up with through its informants. At first the System had viewed the Russian diamonds as merely a potential threat, one that the System with its stranglehold on the marketing aspect of the trade could easily cope with. There had even been some talk early on about profiting from the situation by allowing the Russians to market some of its goods through the System. That met with graven resistance from the board of directors. The very idea! it had huffed.

Then came the African problems and a change of heart.

If the System was to survive, an affiliation between it and the Russians would have to be. Churcher, however, wasn't about to expose his wounds and beg mercy. He tried some finagling.

He promoted the rumor that an important diamond find had been made in northern Australia. It was reported to be a huge field that could be easily and quite inexpensively mined. What was more, the gem yield percentage was phenomenally high, higher than had ever been gotten out of South Africa or even out of Namibia.

This blessed, bountiful Australian find was, of course, a feint. There was some truth to it. There were diamonds in northern Australia. The System had known that for ages. However, it had also known that the diamonds found there were mainly small and of inferior quality. What Churcher hoped was that all the to-do over the Australian find would flush the Russians, get them to come out and ask the System if it would be so kind as to help market their diamonds. The System would, with perfectly measured reluctance, condescend.

The Soviet Minister of Foreign Trade was Grigori Savich. He didn't take the System's bait. He just nosed around it and eyed it carefully.

Churcher casually extended an invitation to Savich to come to London for a friendly chat.

Savich told Churcher to come to Moscow and talk business.

Churcher went.

The Soviets did not mention how the System had made them pay dearly for diamonds right after the war, but no doubt they kept it in mind. They politely permitted Churcher to say his opening piece about how the System with its years of marketing experience and its established setup could be put to profitable use by the Soviets. That was true, and the Soviets agreed. They were most cordial. They agreed to everything up to the point of terms. When it came to stating terms, Churcher was interrupted by Savich. From Savich's unequivocal tone, Churcher gathered that the Soviets knew the System was negotiating from weakness. He just assumed his soft face and nodded.

The deal was cut. All the way to its small print.

The Russians would from then on supply the System with the diamonds it needed for the world market.

The System was saved. Just a few months short of having to fold.

It was never publicized that the System and the Soviets had become such cozy business bedfellows. That would have been bad for business, especially damaging in the West on the retail level. Why give the men in the United States, for instance, a political excuse for not buying a diamond bauble or two for their lady loves? Instead, the System saw to it that Russian diamonds in general were disparaged, said to be on the small side, to be rather undesirably grayish and difficult to cut because they were brittle. Everyone, even the best-informed diamondaires in the trade, bought the scenario.

The Soviets and the System.

Over the years their secret collaboration prevailed.

Rupert Churcher prevailed.

However, on that Friday afternoon in May in the late 1980s, as Churcher studied himself in the mirror above the commode in his private lavatory off his private office on the fourth floor at 11 Harrowhouse, he had doubts that he would last long enough to get his knighthood. Yesterday the Africans, today the Russians, he mentally complained. It was a dreadful much. Just moments ago he had excused himself and left the three Russians seated in the special boardroom, the smaller, more elegant room normally reserved for when the senior members of the board, such as Sir Hubert Brightman and Sir Nelson Askwith, got together for an insiders' chat. Churcher had excused himself because he'd felt he was on the edge and it was giving way. “Nature calls,” he'd said with a casual shrug and taken this breather.

Churcher broke his gaze in the mirror, made his eyes avoid his eyes. He glanced down and was astonished to see his fly undone, a portion of his starched shirttail poking out. He didn't recall having unzipped. Hell, he didn't have to piss. That had only been an excuse. Was his mind that far off? He shook his head as if that might rearrange his thoughts to a more comfortable order. He did up his fly and decided on a splash of Wellington. Sometimes his spirit could be lifted by a little thing like that. Wellington from Trumper's on Curzon Street had for many years been Churcher's cologne of preference.