You won’t surprise anyone with gold plumbing fixtures. Mikhail Khrolenko creates fashion for heaters made of semi-precious minerals

Moscow, bath accessories store. On the shelf there are two types of stones for the stove: gray basalt (200 rubles for a 20 kg bucket) and greenish jadeite (4800 rubles). What will the buyer choose? “They are taking more and more jadeite from us,” says Yana Razvetskaya, manager of the Sauna Light salon. “This week we took 10 buckets of jadeite, but not a single box of ordinary stone yet.”

In fact, jadeite, the closest relative of jade (in China they even use the same hieroglyph to designate these stones), has long been known in Southeast Asia. Jewelry, figurines, and boxes are made from it. Almost the entire world reserve of this mineral is concentrated there, in Asia (more specifically, in Myanmar). However, jadeite for steam rooms is mined in Russia - at the Borusskoe deposit in Khakassia.

The head of the Khakasinterservice company, Mikhail Khrolenko, bought a license to develop this site in 1996 with an eye on the Asian jewelry market. The fact that the deposit, lost in the mountains at an altitude of 1200 m above sea level, can be reached only five to six months a year, did not frighten Khrolenko: “At one time I read books by Jack London. I wanted romance and something that is inaccessible...” It took two years to prepare the deposit for development, after which the entrepreneur brought from Hong Kong a contract for the supply of 1000 tons of jadeite over five years at $1.20 per kg.

For three years, Khrolenko regularly sent the stone to buyers, and the Chinese paid just as regularly—until Russian customs intervened. The fact is that jadeite is a heterogeneous stone. One piece of this rock may contain an imperial jewelry grade, comparable in cost and rarity to an emerald, an ornamental commercial variety (up to $1000 per 1 kg) and a utility construction grade ($1–30 per 1 kg). “This stone is considered one of the most difficult to evaluate and describe. Even a slight change in color and transparency greatly affects the cost,” says Alexander Stolyarevich, chief expert at the Gemological Center of Moscow State University.

For the time being, Mikhail Khrolenko sent unsorted blocks of stone to China - let the buyer figure out what was inside. At customs, the cargo was declared as construction material. However, in 2000, just in case, the State Customs Committee classified all jadeite as semi-precious stones. To export these products, you must have the appropriate license and pay a duty of 5% of the value of the goods. With annual revenues of $240,000, there was no point in bothering with obtaining an export license.

The first attempt to find a use for jadeite in Russia failed. Perhaps the stone carvers brought by Mikhail Khrolenko from China did not feel the specifics of the market. “At first we barely made ends meet,” Khrolenko complains. — They did many things in their vision. For example, piggy banks, a symbol of wealth, were not of our breed, they were too fat and with slanted eyes.” Perhaps Khrolenko himself overestimated the interest of Russians in piggy banks and sacred figurines.

All these difficulties could have been overcome over time, but circumstances got in the way - in 2003, the SARS epidemic broke out in Asia and the Russian embassy banned Chinese stone cutters from entering Russia. “I don’t think a lifetime will be enough for Russian consumers to understand this stone,” says Sergei Mikheev, owner of the Pusierka jadeite deposit in the Polar Urals. Mikhail Khrolenko’s colleague closed work at his mine two years ago; 10 tons of already mined stone lie idle in a warehouse.

But Khrolenko himself was not going to give up. His friends, former geologists, asked several times to “throw in some jadeite” for the bath. “When two such requests collided on the same day, I decided - why not make money from it?” - says the entrepreneur. You can put low grade jadeite into the oven - there is more of this kind of stone in the deposit than jewelry, and there will be less fuss than with making souvenirs. Khrolenko calculated that the capacity of the bathing stone market in the post-Soviet space is about 400 tons per month. Khakasinterservice can occupy from 20% to 30% of this market.

The stone, packaged in plastic food buckets, was brought to Moscow for a specialized exhibition. “They looked at us like we were crazy: firstly, how can you throw a semi-precious stone into a bathhouse, and secondly, what kind of fool would buy a stone for a bathhouse for that kind of money?” - says Khrolenko. At first, we managed to sell no more than 200–500 kg per month.

The buyer had to explain the meaning of this combination - jadeite + bathhouse. “We proved that Finnish or Swedish basalt in a bathhouse collapses within six months, but our stone is eternal,” says Khrolenko. Gemologists confirm that jadeite is able to withstand very high temperatures and retains heat for a long time - an official conclusion has been received on this score from the Research Institute of Building Physics. But that, as they say, is not all. “Jadeite... strengthens the nervous system, equalizes blood pressure, softens blood vessels, improves blood composition, enhances male potency, treats diseases of the kidneys and urinary tract...”.

This is a quote from the “Quality Certificate”, which is attached to each bucket of polished jadeite stones. These claims are difficult to prove. The statement that jadeite heated in a bathhouse releases certain healing substances makes experts smile. “The very structure of the stone is such that it cannot evaporate anything,” says Alexander Stolyarevich from the Gemological Center of Moscow State University. But these tales sound beautiful.

Now jadeite is sold in more than 70 stores in Moscow and the Moscow region, and is used in hundreds of clubs, baths and saunas. Khrolenko gave 500 kg of jadeite to the Sandunovsky baths for free. “We have an agreement on joint activities,” he explains. “We hang out there, our employees take guests there, arrange shows.” According to the commercial director of the Sandunovsky Baths, Nikolai Demidov, jadeite produces light and soft steam, it never gives you a headache, as happens from volcanic rock, and there is a slight smell “like mint.”

In 2004, Khakasinterservice sold a total of 250 tons of jadeite. According to Forbes, the revenue amounted to about $1 million. The Bath direction accounted for about 50% of the turnover. Other sources of income are sets of stones for stone therapy, materials for construction. A special product is boulders weighing from 300 kg to 7 tons, which a client who is partial to beauty can install on his country plot (beauty is inexpensive - from $2 per kg). “We are trying to ensure that our customers use jadeite in a comprehensive manner,” Khrolenko plans. — For the wife to wear jadeite jewelry, the husband had a craft made from our stone on the table. There’s a heater in the bathhouse, tiles in the kitchen, my wife gets massages with our stones, and there are a few more blocks on the property.”

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