Found in marble mines near the town of Prilep and long treated as mere rubble, some have recently found ways to profit from it, even though its excavation remains unregulated. That’s the story of the rare pinkish mineral known as Macedonian, or Prilep ruby, which is sold on the black market, online, and in a few jewelry shops without any official quality certificates. This has not prevented the state from gifting this semi-precious stone to Pope Benedict XVI or the film divas Catherine Deneuve and Daryl Hannah, among others.
Treasure buried in landfills
On the way to the village of Prisad, every car turns white, no matter what colour it had when it started the journey from nearby Prilep Lake.
From the town of Prilep to the lake there is an asphalt road, but from the lake to Prisad, the road is covered with white marble dust.
According to the last census, this village, ten kilometers north of Prilep, has only four inhabitants. When BIRN visited on a hot July day, it only found one.
There were only half-ruined houses, a closed post office with a telephone booth, as well as a village fountain and trough that cattle could drink from. Livestock could be seen, but only two dogs kept us company near the fountain.
The picture outside this tranquil village was anything but.
The village is located right next to Sivec mine, the largest marble deposit in the country. Marble is everywhere. So much so that the local road signs are also made from marble slabs.
Excavators dig into the mine, and trucks bring out multi-ton blocks. The small pieces that were crushed while cutting the big marble blocks are piled up around the village.
On these white hills, along with the crushed marble, pieces of Macedonian ruby have also been thrown. According to the State Auditor’s report on mineral exploitation, published this year, local mine workers have been known to collect them and sell them on the black market.
The trade in this rare stone remains untaxed and unregulated. Photo: BIRN
Secret master craftsman from Prilep
There are several jewelers and jewelry stores in Prilep bazaar, but we were told that Macedonian ruby can only be found in one. “If you don’t find it there, you won’t find it anywhere,” locals told us.
At the end of the bazaar, we found the shop where silver jewelry adorned with various stones is made. Some of them had the recognizable pink colour of the Macedonian ruby.
“The smoother it is, the more expensive it is,” the owner told us.
She didn’t have any rough pieces in the shop, she said, as they didn’t work the stone, they just get finished pieces, which they then insert into rings, bracelets, necklaces and other jewelry.
“There is one master in Prilep who works these stones. But you can’t contact him. He doesn’t want to expose himself at all,” she added.
She emphasized that the processing of this stone is specific and must be done with special diamond discs due to the hardness of the ruby.
Both locals and foreigners have bought jewelry with this stone. But how do they know that the pink piece of jewelry is a real Macedonian ruby? For now, it is impossible to confirm this with an official certificate because the state has not finished its work.
“Those who know it can recognise it,” she told us.
And those who know can also buy a ruby online. On the e-Bay platform, a piece of unworked Macedonian ruby of 955 carats costs $1,200, or just over €1,100.
In other places one can buy jewelry such as a necklaces, bracelets or rings. Prices are different, from 5,000 denars [€85] to 14,000 denars [€230].
Dean Shkartov-Deko is the owner of the only legal store where the Macedonian Ruby can be bought. Photo: BIRN
State institutions are also customers
In the capital, Skopje, on the other hand, the only legal craftsman and seller of this stone is in the small artisan workshop named “Macedonian ruby – Deko”.
Its owner, Dean Shkartov-Deko, is mentioned in a report on the Macedonian ruby written by the National Geological Institute. Deko has a website, which carries the domain “mkrubin”.
We visited the workshop in the centre of the city. Shkartov said he became interested in this mineral after his stay in Italy, where he learned a lot about precious stones.
“What jade means to China, what opal means to Australia, turquoise to Iran and the US, that is the ruby to Macedonia,” one of the promo materials found in Shkartov’s workshop says.
State institutions have been ordering Macedonian ruby from his company for years. Governments, the Presidential Office and other state institutions like the Culture Ministry and the Secretariat for European Affairs are among past buyers.
On the shelves in the shop are pieces of unworked Macedonian ruby and ruby souvenirs adorned in filigree.
Shkartov explains that they managed to trademark their ruby products 14 years ago, despite the ruby itself not being regulated.
To overcome the long-standing legal mess over this stone, Shkartov says it would be best to pass a special law on the Macedonian ruby.
“We have something that no other country has. It is not found in Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro or Greece. It was found in the Alps, in Scotland, and in Norway, but only small pebbles, to stand in a museum. Only in Macedonia, for 15-16 years, have we had daily artisanal production with Macedonian rubies,” Shkartov says.
The Macedonian ruby is good for a German or Italian customer who perhaps has a ruby from Myanmar, India, the Congo or Tanzania, but does not have a European ruby, he explains.
Shkartov emphasizes that the sale of Macedonian ruby, combined with filigree, another landmark craft, has been particularly successful in the lakeside town of Ohrid, North Macedonia’s biggest tourist hotspot.
Shkartov says that the sale of Macedonian ruby, combined with filigree, another landmark craft, has been particularly successful in the lakeside town of Ohrid, North Macedonia’s biggest tourist hotspot. Photo: BIRN
Waiting five years for a signature
A legal grey area around the pink ruby continues because the state has not completed its task to register it, although this has been in the works for some six years.
In 2018, the then government tasked the Geological Institute to prepare a report on the Macedonian ruby. The aim of the report was to show that it is a mineral with its own “particularity, uniqueness, geographical and geological features and ability for processing and use as a decorative and precious stone”.
It is a stone whose chemical composition is aluminum oxide.
The first records about it date from 1925, when, during the exploitation of marble, an unusual “burning” occurred, that is, the destruction of the saws used to cut the marble. This was found to be caused by much tougher corundum crystals, in other words, the ruby.
The Macedonian ruby, according to the report, is “pale pink with a purple variety of corundum”. It is mostly found in the Pelagonia massif, which is where Prilep lies.
In the report that BIRN received from the Geological Institute, it is written that, due to the uncontrolled collection and sale of the Macedonian ruby, “Macedonia on the world map is still an illegitimate and insufficiently affirmed producer of ruby”.
The report was submitted to the Ministry of Economy for an opinion about five years ago. It contained specific activities for the project entitled “Macedonian ruby”, such as laboratory tests, creation of a dedicated website and organisation of a fair of Macedonian minerals.
When the new State Audit report on the exploitation of mineral resources, published in June, was being prepared, the Geological Institute informed the auditors that the process was still stuck, as the ministry had not yet issued its opinion.
On the e-Bay platform, a piece of unworked Macedonian ruby of 955 carats costs $1,200, or just over €1,100. Photo: BIRN
BIRN asked the Economy Ministry why this opinion has not been issued. It did not get a reply by time of publication.
This was before the May general elections and the subsequent change in power. In future, this procedure will have to be continued by the new Ministry of Energy, Mining and Mineral Resources, which is currently being staffed.
The auditors conclude that, so far, the Macedonian ruby collection process is spontaneous and unorganized, and that the state seems uninterested in putting it into order.
It also notes that the percentage that the state receives from ruby exploitation is zero, because, despite the procedures being largely completed, it is still not registered as a mineral, so it cannot be legally exploited, or taxed.
It writes that the problem with taxation lies in omissions in legal acts.
The country’s Law on Mineral Resources does not even mention this ruby as a separate mineral.
Thus, the taxation of exploitation of precious and semi-precious stones, which stipulates a 5-per-cent cut for the state, cannot be put into effect.
