Gold tour around the Middle Ural

Duration -  7 days

1 day
Arrival in Ekaterinburg, accommodation in hotel.
Free time.
Spend the night in hotel.

2 day
Breakfast in hotel.
Visit gold deposit of Berezovsk town, which is the native land of golden industry Russia.
Here it will be possible to take part in panning out gold.
Objects:
1. Place of discovery of the first gold in Russia and the monument to discoverer of gold - Erofei Markov.
2. Visiting the museum “Gold and platinum in the Urals” in the settlement Berezovsky.
3. Visiting the quartz vein "puff vein" where you can pick up samples of rock crystals, including of dark green tourmaline.
4. Visiting the mountain “Gold hill”. Tourists can descend into the mine (depth up to 8 m). From the tailings it is possible to pick up samples of rock crystals of various morphology, including carbonates, fuchsite, green tourmaline, manganite, pyrolusite, goethite.
Lunch.
5. Visiting the “Galena vein”, where you can look at interesting paragenesis with azurite and malachite. Here it is possible to collect samples of minerals (dolomite, magnetite, goethite).
Spend the night in the hotel.

3 day
Breakfast in hotel.
Visit of the town Alapaevsk or Nizhnyaya Sinyachikha (an open-air museum of wooden architecture and folk art, which holds more then 20 masterpieces of religious construction, defensive installations and peasants houses).
Lunch.
Transfer to the settlement Neivo-Shaitanka, accommodation in private house.
Dinner.
Spend the night in the private house.

4 day
Breakfast.
Visit the mineralogical museum by A. Fersman in the village Murzinka. Visit old-time and modern mining-works of semi-precious stones - beryls, topazes, amethysts and others.
Visit the mine Mokrusha and Golodnaya.
   -  The mining works “Mokrusha”, discovered in 1875 and became famous throughout the whole world because of the delightful celestial-blue topazes (called “heavyweights” by Uralian prospectors). “Mokrusha” became famous from the end of 19th century in the Urals, when fine samples of cleavelandite, smoke crystal, garnet, “roses” of mica, needles and sheaves of tourmaline and fine blue topazes were extracted. Samples of these minerals the tourists can be found amongst the tailings.
   -  The mining works “Golodnaya” (Hungry) is a very well known deposit and is famous for the large smoky crystals with mirror sides, fine topazes, yellowish-green beryl, green tourmaline and fine smoky quartz with inclusions of black tourmaline.
Lunch.
   -  The quarry “Mogol” with pegmatite vein, where tourists can find samples of crystal, smoky quartz, cleavelandite, mica, heliodor and topaze.
Dinner.
Spend the night in the private house.

5 day
Breakfast.
Transfer to the town Nizhnij Tagil – ancestral land of the Demidov’s - founders of the mining and metallurgical industries  in the Urals.
In time of excursion we’ll visit:
   -  The famous deposit “Mednorudyanskoe”. This deposit was discovered in 1813. The major amount of uralian malachite of the 19^th century was extracted from here. Right here was discovered a gigantic nest of malachite - which gave 480 ton of ornamental malachite, including a monolith of about 40 ton. Mednorudyanskoye deposit is where new minerals such as brochantite and delafossite are found. You can found out on the quarry’s dump specimens of malachite, chrysocolla, brochantite, martite, cuprite, pseudo-malachite, pyrolusite and quartz with hematite.
   -  Visit the local lore museum of Nizhni Tagil (where was invented the first locomotive). The museum presents wonderful specimens of local stones, rocks and stone crafts.
Lunch.
Visit of the town Neviyansk - one of the oldest plants of the Urals. Neviyanskij Plant was built on the edict of Peter the Great in 1710.
We’ll visit famous inclined Neviyansk tower (like the Leaning Tower of Piza) belonging to the mining and metallurgical works of the Demidov’s.
In this day it will be possible to take part in panning out gold.
Transfer to Ekaterinburg, accommodation in hotel.
Spend the night in the hotel.

6 day
Breakfast.
Visit the Ural Emerald Mining-works near the settlement Malyshevo.
Lunch.
Visit the Bazhenovo’s asbest deposit.
Spend the night in the hotel.

7 day
Breakfast in hotel
Visit the Ural Geological Museum.
The Ural Geology Museum was founded in 1937 as an exhibition of mineral treasures of the Urals organized for the 17th session of the International Geological Congress. In 1938 it was transferred to the Ural Geological Institute.
Nowadays the museum is the state “treasure-house” of the Urals and the cultural centre carrying out large tutorial, scientific and educational work. Its main aim is accumulation, investigation, systematization of rocks and minerals of the Ural region and their preservation for the next generations. In the museum are more than 40 thousand exhibits (rocks, minerals, crystals, fossils and others), reflecting the mineral riches and geology of the Urals.
It is housed in a four-story building not far from the city centre.
The exposition of the museum is subdivided conveniently into 4 main departments: 
   ·  Crystallography and Mineralogy
   ·  Minerals
   ·  General and Historical Geology
   ·  Petrography and Lithology

Overview of the excursion in the historical centre of Ekaterinburg.

Visit the Museum of the History of Jeweler and Lapidary Arts.
It was founded in 1992 as a branch of study at the local lore museum of Sverdlovsk district.
It is located in one of the historical-architectural monuments of Ekaterinburg from the 19^th century – a former factory drugstore.
The collections contained in the museum are based upon: handicrafts from the Ekaterinburg lapidary factory, modern jewelers and masters of lapidary and people’s private handicrafts from the Ural region.
The exposition is subdivided into several halls, among them: the hall of the Ekaterinburg lapidary factory, the malachite hall, the hall of the Uralian jasper, the hall of Russian jewelry from the end of the 18^th to the beginning of the 20^th century, the hall of the history of gold and platinum industry, and also exhibitions of sacred monuments and modern jewelry from the Urals.
Lunch.
Free time.
Spend the night in the hotel.

8 day
Breakfast in hotel.
Transfer to the airport.