Natural stone is perhaps the only building material that can be called eternal. It is rightfully considered a symbol of strength and reliability.

Felsite is a rock of volcanic origin, so it is dense and heavy. It is called the volcanic equivalent of granite. Felsite is widely used for various purposes: in landscape design and construction, mulching, creating Alpine gardens, as well as for decorating ponds, pools, fountains, monuments and ritual objects, interiors (walls and floors, columns, stairs, balusters, cornices), and facing fireplaces, bathrooms and swimming pools.

Felsite has unique properties. The stone’s color changes depending on the lighting. When used in interior décor, the same wall of the building on a sunny day will be light, and on a gloomy or foggy day — it will have a muted color. Felsite combines several types of minerals, and they create a chaotic harmony of yellow, black, and red inclusions. These distinctive signs make it possible to distinguish felsite from other rocks used in construction and décor or their artificial analogs.

Yamal felsite, unlike its more famous but rare peers, is a fairly common ornamental stone. In the mountainous part of the Polar Urals, geologists have explored and discovered more than five deposits and occurrences of this interesting stone, including Obryvistoye (from the Russian “obryv” — “a cliff”), Felsitovoye (Felsite), Central, and Southern sites. Felsite reserves are huge. As of 2020, only in the deposits and occurrences of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the total estimated reserves of felsite amount to 956.5 million cubic meters. The mining and geological conditions of felsite occurrence are very simple, so it can be extracted in open-pit mines.

Industrial deposits of felsite are located in Armenia and the North Caucasus, Germany, Hungary, Transcarpathia, Karnataka (India). Felsite of the Polar Urals is dark in color with a cherry-purple hue and beige streaks. This sample is from the Obryvistoye site in the Polar Urals, it was transferred to the museum in 2016.