The exhibition contains a cigar box with Ural minerals inside. These are all remains from the vast collection of stones that belonged to Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak.

He didn’t only write books, he also was a journalist, a society figure, studied the history of his native region, and collected rare minerals. Mamin-Sibiryak bought his first set from another collector, and then began to look for stones at excavations. More often, the writer added stones to his collection during his travels in the Urals. One day, he found a rare green colored gem, Volkonskoite, named after Prince Peter Volkonsky. Previously, this mineral was used to make paint for icons. It is also displayed in the collection of the house-museum.

The collection of Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak also contained very large-sized minerals. That is why he kept the stones in a shed at 27, Sobornaya Street (now Pushkina Street). There, the writer spent a lot of time studying his specimens. Contemporaries recalled that before going to visit Mamin-Sibiryak guests picked up pockets full of small pebbles in the barn and gave them to him as souvenirs.

Ural minerals were an important theme in the work of the writer. Mamin-Sibiryak dedicated his essay “Gemstones” [“Samotsvety”], the story “Vertel” and other texts to them.

In “Vertel”, Mamin-Sibiryak described the work of a lapidary workshop, where precious stones are shaped. The work in such factory was dangerous: the workers inhaled the fine dust from the machining; severe lung diseases worsened, and some even died.

That’s how the character from the story “Vertel”, a little boy Proshka, died in the workshop, among his colleagues, who could not help him. Mamin-Sibiryak emphasized that his death was to blame for difficult working conditions and lack of safety.