ALROSA’s going underground will be inevitably accompanied by a host of problems – operating, economic and social. The necessity to construct underground mines in Yakutia was recognized by experts more than two decades back and major project decisions were also taken quite a long time ago, while the mining science was not idle all this time. Professional discussion focused on diamond mines construction was permanently under way, but unfortunately it was rarely an object of regard for the expert community studying the diamond market. Lev Puchkov, President of the Moscow State Mining University, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, Doctor of Engineering and one of Russia’s leading experts in the field of underground systems, offers his own point of view for this problem.

As far back as on the 1st of April, Russia’s Accounting Chamber sent to the Finance Minister and the head of ALROSA’s Supervisory Board Alexey Kudrin a recommendation about resignation of the company’s President Sergey Vybornov, Mikhail Beskhmelnitsyn, the Accounting Chamber auditor, told the Interfax Agency.

A decision of ALROSA’s Supervisory Board as of July 10 on Fyodor Andreyev’s appointment as ALROSA’s President starting July 15 became a great event in the global diamond business.

The management reshuffle in ALROSA was commented to the Kommersant Daily by Sergey Vybornov in his last interview as the company’s CEO. By tradition, the Diamonds & Gold of Russia magazine publishes a full text of the «farewell» interview with the resigning President of ALROSA (Nichiporuk, when leaving from a presidential bridge of the company, said: «It is difficult to work when you face misunderstanding»).