The Perm land is rich in its beauty. Although the glory of the Bazhovsky’s land belongs to Yekaterinburg, Great Perm can argue with its eternal rival using the beauty and the variety of extracted stones… But we will not argue; only I would like to tell you about a unique deposit of a fine-fibered gypsum – about selenite. Selenite is found all over the world, but such color and play of stone is found nowhere. It is considered a visiting card of the Perm region not without reason. Selenite belongs to a group of semiprecious stones, and it is appreciated on a level with nephrite and malachite. It is very beautiful and delicate stone. Selenite enjoys wide popularity. It has such unusual sunny color that it attracts your attention automatically. This stone is an original paragon of beauty! It is colored in milk-white, pinkish-white, pinkish-cream, pinkish-yellow colors. And the most valuable color of selenite is honey one. Selenite is an iridescent and silky stone. It is rich in its superfine color shades and play of light. It makes similar selenite to a stone tiger’s-eye. Selenite is named the “gold gypsum” quite deservedly.
n the Perm region selenite is mined at the slopes of a river Iren where is a village Red Jasyl located. The bank of Iren looks like a puff-pastry pie; it is stuffed with all kinds of gypsums and alabasters. The layers of this “pie” were formed during many years, and I cannot enumerate all here… Take for example anhydride (alabaster): it lies in the bottom lifts of deposits. And anhydride confuse with marble very often. It is white, bluish, grey, pink, yellow with a striped pattern, deep-brown with black thin stripes and almost colorless (sometimes it is named “icy”). However, return to selenite. It was formed as a result of gypsum recrystallization. It is a soft stone enough, 2, 0 is according to Moos scale. Someone can be of opinion that the softness of stone is a defect, but just this softness of selenite