This collection of Ural ores and minerals is a special exhibit of the House-Museum of the Ural writer. The initial letters of the names of each of the stones (in Russian): pyrite, pegmatite, bornite, agate, iron, onyx, vermiculite — add up to his name “P.P. Bazhov”.

Pavel Petrovich Bazhov and his connection with geology and mineralogy is a separate big topic. The writer was always interested in stones and ores, collected them, studied specialized literature and wrote about people whose professions and lives were connected with mountain and earth riches. The heroes of his works were ore miners, stone-cutters, and prospectors. At his workplace, in addition to the necessary writing utensils and literary materials, he invariably kept minerals: jasper of different colors, rock crystal, and malachite.

Bazhov, and subsequently his family, always treasured stones. In the autobiographical story “Far and Near” Pavel Petrovich recalled that upon arrival in Yekaterinburg at the age of ten, he was carrying with him a small piece of red jasper, which he was going to get cut and polished. His loved ones had the same passion and affection for stones. So, after the writer’s death, his youngest daughter Ariadna recalled that when she left for Cuba, her mother put a piece of malachite in her suitcase — “as a memento of her parents’ house.”

Bazhov was friends with prominent and respected miners in the Urals — specialists in the extraction of precious stones and gemstones — and stone-cutters: Danila Zverev and Karp Averkiev. The former even became the prototype of the hero of the tale “In Search of Layered Rocks” — Trosha Lyogonky.

Pavel Petrovich’s contemporaries recalled that by the very way he held and looked at the stones alone, it was possible to conclude about his knowledge and love of minerals.