Modern technologies for the extraction of block granite. The technology of obtaining granite blocks without an explosive method. Opening of the field and the applied development system

Do you want to know what the capital is spending billions on? I returned from another trip to the Urals, where I shot the 500th production in my life. In addition to industrial photographs, dirty clothes and dusty cameras, I brought a terrible secret with me.

1. Bashkiria. Quiet and picturesque places of the South Urals. In the villages, consider selling potatoes, river fish and fresh kumis for nothing. Beauty! But if you turn off the road onto some dusty primer, you will definitely find yourself in some kind of production, cut or quarry.

The Ural is a treasury of various minerals. Back in school, in geography lessons, we were told that the Ural mountain system is one of the oldest, formed 200-400 million years ago. Of the 55 types of the most important minerals that were developed in the USSR, 48 are represented in the Urals.

2. Meet - this is granite. Magmatic rock... Granite is one of the densest, hardest and toughest rocks on earth. It is widely used in construction as a facing and road material.

3. Mansurovskoe deposit - the largest in the country for the extraction of block stone. Mansurovsky granite is mined in a single place, near the Bashkir city of Uchaly. This type of rock is considered to be one of the oldest granites in Russia and on the entire planet, with a geological age of 350 million years. According to geologists, the proven reserves of the field will last another 200 years.

4. The lightest of all Russian granites is mined here. For its soft wavy texture and milky light gray color, Mansurovsky granite is often compared to marble, it is not for nothing that it conquered the international space and is considered one of the most popular "made in Russia" granites abroad.

It is this granite that is now being laid all over Moscow and in particular on Tverskaya Street. 90% of the tiles, curbs and paving stones that the city buys now come from the Urals (the rest from Karelia). Five quarries in the Urals (Mansurovsky is the largest) and more than 30 enterprises for cutting stone are working to supply granite for the reconstruction program "My Street".

5. The method of extracting granite blocks is different from the ones I am used to in iron ore, limestone quarries or coal mines. If in the latter the mineral is hammered, crumbled and crushed, then here the opposite is true. The geological features of the bedding of the rock make it possible to extract it in sufficiently large blocks, which are convenient to work with in the future. This explains the relatively low cost of such a beautiful and high-quality material, although, of course, the technology of casting from concrete is cheaper.

6. The more you manage to break off the block, the more it costs. But not everything is as easy as it seems. Granite is one of the most durable rocks for a reason. The average density of the rock is 2600 kg / m3, 3. To break off such an even piece, you need to try hard.

7. The process of extracting granite is similar to the process of eating a truffle cake layer by layer. Granite occurs in layers. A part of the rock is separated from the massif, which is then divided into smaller blocks.

8. There are several methods for cutting off pieces of "cake". One of them is with large gas burners. The composition of granite includes quartz, which peels off and flies off under the influence of temperature. Thus, the burner gradually cuts through the granite. The more quartz in granite, the coarser the grains, and the faster the rock is cut. In this way, a cross-section of the piece is made.

11. A special chemical solution is poured into the drilled holes, which creates a "soft explosion". Inside the cramped hole, the mixture expands, splits and shifts the granite block.

13. All workers are local (albeit tanned).
- Guys, let me take a picture of you now. Can you hit with sledgehammers somehow at the same time?
- Listen, let's better give you a sledgehammer, and we'll take everything off ourselves?

14. Gradually hammering in a row of wedges, the rock cracks and voila, the new block is detached.

15. There is another method - wire sawing. It is used in the Yuzhno-Sultaevsky quarry. The bottom line is that instead of gas burners a tricky wire rope cutter is used.

16. The rope is passed through the drilled holes. Gradually, the installation drives off along the guides, and a huge piece is cut out in a few hours.

17. Vzhzhzh!

21. Finished blocks are transported by loaders or dump trucks to the sawmill of the quarry. Or sold as is to other sawmills.

23. Until recently, the entire stone mining industry was in a deplorable state. Due to the crisis, the demand for granite products in other cities has dropped. On the other hand, private traders began to look more and more towards the Russian stone. The course has changed, and the price of Chinese granite has risen sharply.

This is what a standard granite curb and tile workshop looked like two years ago.

24. After starting the program "My Street" Ural enterprises began to come to life. If before the Moscow order the Mansurovsky quarry produced about 3000 cubic meters of granite per month, now this figure is twice as much.

25. With the first money from orders, new equipment was purchased, new workshops were built. The high order volume has breathed life into the entire industry. Adjacent enterprises for the production of packaging, wire rod, timber, fuels and lubricants, various equipment etc. The equipment, however, was purchased entirely imported (except for dump trucks and cranes). Here is such an import substitution, however.

27. Among other things, the number of workers in the quarries has been increased. On Mansur from 300 to 400 people. We have to work in three shifts. In general, more than 4,000 people throughout the Urals are currently working on the production of granite for Moscow.

28. The mining companies are doing well. We even ordered a photographer from Moscow for a few days. The money earned could have simply been swallowed or plundered, but as we can see, production is developing and equipment is being updated.

29. If marble slabs are cut at one time, then granite has to be cut for a very long time. The saw blade moves back and forth on the slab, lowering only 1 cm at a time. Large chunks of granite are sawn for hours.

30. Massive blocks are sawn into slabs, smaller blocks are dismantled onto curbs. Every little thing, such as paving stones, does not require large blanks and is sawn (or pricked) from slab scraps.

32. To speed up the cutting process, there are such large and cunning wire saws.

33. On such machines it is possible to saw slabs into 10 blocks with a height of more than two meters.

36. The quality of the cut is perfect.

37. An Italian master supervises the setting up of the equipment.

38. To prevent passers-by from slipping on the tiles in winter, the surface is heat-treated.

39. Tiles become rough and not as slippery as polished granite.

40. So far, heat treatment is carried out manually, but a special machine has already been installed in the workshop, and soon this process will be carried out automatically.

41. New workshop, and finished products career. This curbstone is already being laid on Tverskaya Street. More than 3 kilometers of straight side and 500 meters of radius were ordered for it.

42. These curbs and tiles are 350 million years old, just a minute!

44. Chopped paving stones.

46. To deliver tiles and curbs to Tverskaya it took 364 trucks, which brought 7271 tons of granite - this is an area of 33.5 thousand square meters.

By weight, it's like spreading thirty Boeing 747s across Tverskaya..

47. In total, this year Moscow has ordered 47,500 tons of granite products. This is 2,374 trucks or 220,000 m2 of coverage. What is comparable to the area 30 soccer fields! This is to the question that Muscovites are too hungry. In a sense, this is certainly true, the capital is the richest city in the country, but the money for its renovation goes to the regions where production rises.

48. In terms of the cost of its extraction, processing and delivery, granite is inferior to similar concrete products. But there are also pluses:
- granite has low water absorption and high resistance to frost and dirt. Concrete absorbs moisture better.
- concrete is abraded, it is more dusty than granite.
- concrete slabs are produced at the factory, and granite is produced by nature itself.

49. Each quarry has its own texture and shade of granite. If you look at the scheme of laying tiles on the streets of Moscow, you can see a certain pattern in the drawing. Tiles of different colors came from different quarries.

50. At the Tashmurun quarry darker granite is mined than the Mansurovsky. The quarry itself is smaller.

54. Kambulatovsky quarry.

56. This quarry ranks first in terms of the efficiency of production of cubic meters of products per worker.

58. Yuzhno-Sultaevsky quarry with large beautiful cranes.

60. In general, I have everything. I would just like to clarify that if you choose granite instead of concrete, this does not mean that everything will automatically be fine. Nothing like this. Without the right technology styling will fall apart anything. If you make a backing of shit and branches, then after the first winter the sidewalk / steps / curbs will float and burst from the uneven load.

62. It is not enough to buy a granite curb, it still needs to be correctly installed. This curb, albeit crooked, was installed 10 years ago.

63. And this is his age, a concrete border.

64. This is how it is, granite. Meet on the streets of Moscow, Novosibirsk, Salekhard, Tyumen, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Astana, Baku and so on according to the list.

65. So you will walk along Tverskaya or any other reconstructed street, remember that you are touching a history that is 350 million years old!

66. Thank you for your attention!

I would like to express my gratitude to the Granit Invest company and, separately, to Alexei Stepanchenko for the interesting work and a detailed tour of the granite quarries!
And I won't tell you the secret. That's why it is a secret.

When writing the text, an article from the site was used

Let's take a virtual tour of a small granite quarry located in the north of the Leningrad Region to take a look at the process of mining this rock while maximizing cost savings on finished products.

The quarry is hidden from prying eyes, hiding in remote places almost on the border with Finland. There is a road, but it's rather difficult to call it a road. Rather direction. A bumpy dirt road about forty kilometers long from Kamennogorsk to the quarry took us more than an hour. Each new kilometer was worse than the previous one, until, finally, the road turned into a continuous sandy-clay mess. A sure sign. So we are almost there.

At first glance, the quarry looks abandoned. Not a single person came across to us at the entrance. But it’s not surprising. Due to the difficulties of winter mining, the management of this quarry decided not to mine during the winter. With the onset of frost, work here completely stops until spring. Now in April, the reactivation of production has just begun after the winter stagnation. The first watch arrived here just a week ago. Immediately it is necessary to make a reservation that this quarry itself is quite small and the production of blocks here can hardly be called industrial. The volumes are quite modest and amount to an average of 180-200 m3 of finished blocks per month, which is several times less than at a similar quarry in the neighborhood.

Living conditions here are Spartan. There is no electricity. All electricity is supplied by a diesel generator. Everything else is like in the village. Water in the well, toilet outside, shower in the same place. Stove heating. The harsh life of harsh stonecutters.

The picture of brutality is complemented by a battered bulldozer of domestic production, like a monument slumbering near a household town. There isn't too much work for him here.

The senior of the current shift, who kindly agreed to conduct a small excursion around his farm, told us about the career and the nuances of work. There are only 5-7 people in a shift. Almost all employees have versatile skills and several positions. They are trying to increase the profitability of production with the existing volumes by reducing the cost, including saving on staff. The mining foreman acts here both as the head of the site and as a power engineer. A forklift operator can be a ring operator, a saw operator, or a mechanic.

The finished goods warehouse at the beginning of the season looks rather modest. The quarry does not perform any kind of processing, except for direct extraction. These granite blocks are what is on sale. There are no clear sizes for blocks, which would be extremely difficult and costly to maintain. Therefore, there are categories or groups. According to GOST, 4 groups of blocks are defined. Group I - blocks over 5 m3, Group II - blocks 3-5 m3, III - 0.7-3 m3, IV - 0.1-0.7 m3. Blocks should be as close to a parallelepiped as possible. There may be deviations from the correctness of the form, but they are strictly regulated. The value of a block depends on its size. The larger the volume of the block, the more not only its cost, but also the greater the cost of one cubic meter. For example, the cost of 1 m3 of a granite block of the III group in the warehouse is 25,000 rubles, and a block of the I group will cost 28,000 rubles per 1 m3.

However, despite the more expensive cost, it is not very profitable to extract large blocks. The main demand is for blocks II and III groups. Such as for example this one. This is a classic example of the block most in demand in this quarry. Its size is approximately 1x1x2.5 meters.

However, there are such giants among the finished blocks. It is not known how long such a block will wait for its buyer, but sooner or later it will happen and it will profitable sale... Such large blocks are usually taken for subsequent sawing into slabs - plates, from which, for example, countertops or window sills are then made. But these products are not very popular. Much more often, granite is used to make facing tiles, curbs, or slabs for paving and paving. For these products, this raw block size is simply not needed.

Therefore, in most cases, the mined large blocks are passaged to give them more demanded dimensions and the correct shape. For this, special drilling equipment is used, which is capable of very quickly, and most importantly, accurately drilling a line from parallel holes, along which the block will later be split into pieces. There is also a more technologically advanced way - sawing, but in terms of mobility, the "drill" wins, although it is noticeably inferior in speed and quality. After the circular saw, the edges of the block acquire smooth, even surfaces, which has a positive effect on its marketability.

There are different technologies for mining blocks. Until recently, the most widespread mining method in our country was the method of weak explosions. But it has many disadvantages. With this method of extraction, a huge amount of waste is obtained, reaching 80% of the obtained rock mass. In addition, an incorrect calculation of the power of the explosion can lead to the appearance of cracks due to which such a stone will simply not be needed by anyone. Thus, it is possible to completely ruin the deposit and the only product that can be obtained is only crushed stone. Therefore, the method of wire sawing is becoming more and more widespread. The construction of a wire saw is very simple. In fact, it is an electric motor that pulls a rope vaguely similar to a bicycle chain with diamond cutting elements.

It is after her work that such perfectly flat and smooth walls remain. But not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance. If there is nothing complicated during the sawing process - the saw cuts independently, gradually moving along the rails as it is sawing, then the preparation process is much more laborious.

In order to start the rope, you must first drill two holes in the rock. One is vertical and the other is horizontal. and they must be drilled in such a way that they intersect at one point. The slightest misalignment of the drill and drilling will go down the drain. For this operation, many devices have been developed around the world to make life easier for miners, but this quarry traditionally rely on a hand-held, portable pneumatic drilling rig.

She drills a granite rock very effectively, but has its own characteristics. She needs a compressor to work. It is good if there is a diesel compressor. It can work autonomously. And if the compressor is electric, then you will have to either pull the wires with power supply to it, or power it from a diesel generator. This scheme is just used in the quarry. As you remember, there is no external power supply here. As drilling progresses, the length of the drill has to be increased. This is done using drill pipes, which, in addition to elongation, also provide air supply.

Perhaps the main disadvantage of such a drilling tool is its inaccuracy. According to the workers themselves, the hardest part about wire sawing is getting wells accurately drilled. Unfortunately, this does not always work out. Sometimes you have to overdrill, often more than once. If everything went smoothly, a cutting rope is inserted into the holes obtained, and then it is enough to look after the saw while it cuts off a piece of rock.

Sawed in vertical slices called panels. After the cut is completed, the panel is filled up. From hitting the ground, it usually splits along natural cracks. After that, the resulting blocks are sorted and given a marketable form.

Filling the panel is perhaps the most dangerous procedure in the entire block mining process. The higher the horizon, the more dangerous. The panel is folded up with a forklift. A hoe is inserted into the cut from above - a steel hook. A cable is attached to it, a loader is hooked on the other end and slowly begins to pull. At some point, the rock breaks down and collapses. I would not like to be near at this moment. By the way, the risk of involuntary self-collapse of the sawn-off panel also exists. Therefore, you must be extremely careful and avoid potentially dangerous areas.

Fracturing is the main enemy of the miners. If there are many cracks, then the percentage of waste increases accordingly. Fragments of irregular shape, with the wrong direction of the stone layering, too variegated pattern, etc. go to waste. However, the concept of waste in this case is quite abstract. If desired, virtually all of this waste can be recycled appropriately. For example, chop it into small pieces such as paving stones. Another question is how expedient it is. Here, each quarry solves this problem independently.

The main machine in the block quarry is undoubtedly the huge front loader. It is he who does all the hard work in the career. Due to its strength and weight, it is an indispensable human assistant in almost all operations, from clearing the face from waste, transporting blocks, to filling panels. The most common loader used in these quarries is the CAT 988. It is a huge 50 tonne machine that is incredibly strong and reliable. Such a unit has just a cosmic cost - about $ 800,000. A tire from such a loader alone costs about $ 10,000.

As I already said. This machine does absolutely everything. With its help, the finished blocks are moved to the warehouse, the face is cleared of debris, fuel is delivered to installations at any point in the quarry, loaded onto vehicles, access roads are dumped and leveled, snow is removed.

The loader does not use a bucket to move and load blocks. For these operations, there is another device - a pitchfork. The loader is equipped with a quick-detachable device that allows you to quickly change attachments. A couple of minutes are enough for a front bucket loader to turn into a forklift loader like what we often see in large stores construction goods. Only more, much more.

The pitchfork, by the way, is also solid. To match the car itself. They have to lift the weight up to 20 tons. But sometimes the blocks weigh more. For their transportation, standard cargo semi-trailers are not suitable. They are transported on reinforced platforms, on which heavy construction equipment is usually transported, and loading is carried out using a crane.

And this is how the very waste from the production of blocks looks: debris, fragments and trimmings, in their shape and size that do not fall under any group. Domestic quarries traditionally do not care about recycling their waste, which is actually an excellent raw material. But this requires the appropriate equipment, which is very expensive. In addition, this is a completely different profile and a different sales market. It is simply not profitable for the quarries themselves, and for stone processors, in turn, it is unprofitable to transport the fragments to their production facilities. Because of this, the dumps of long-running quarries reach incredible sizes. Sometimes they accumulate several million cubic meters of rock.

The mining business in Russia is only now beginning to take the path of high technologies. High-tech machinery and equipment is being used more and more often, more efficient technologies are being used, additional workshops for stone processing appear. Of course, such development directly depends on the leadership and, unfortunately, so far it often happens in our country that the current state of affairs suits many. However, this situation is not only in the mining industry.

Once I showed you, and now I advise you to look at the post of a professional on the topic of marble mining. And Muscovites will be especially interested ...

Original taken from chistoprudov in Who rolls up Moscow with granite

2. Meet - this is granite. Igneous rock. Granite is one of the densest, hardest and toughest rocks on earth. It is widely used in construction as a facing and road material.

11. A special chemical solution is poured into the drilled holes, which creates a "soft explosion". Inside the cramped hole, the mixture expands, splits and shifts the granite block.

14. Gradually hammering in a row of wedges, the rock cracks and voila, the new block is detached.

15. There is another method - wire sawing. It is used in the Yuzhno-Sultaevsky quarry. The bottom line is that instead of gas burners, a tricky wire rope cutter is used.

16. The rope is passed through the drilled holes. Gradually, the installation drives off along the guides, and a huge piece is cut out in a few hours.

17. Vzhzhzh!

21. Finished blocks are transported by loaders or dump trucks to the sawmill of the quarry. Or sold as is to other sawmills.

This is what a standard granite curb and tile workshop looked like two years ago.

24. After the launch of the My Street program, the Ural enterprises began to revive. If before the Moscow order the Mansurovsky quarry produced about 3000 cubic meters of granite per month, now this figure is twice as much.

25. With the first money from orders, new equipment was purchased, new workshops were built. The high order volume has breathed life into the entire industry. Adjacent enterprises for the production of packaging, wire rod, timber, fuels and lubricants, various equipment, etc. The equipment, however, was purchased entirely imported (except for dump trucks and cranes). Here is such an import substitution, however.

30. Massive blocks are sawn into slabs, smaller blocks are dismantled onto curbs. Every little thing, such as paving stones, does not require large blanks and is sawn (or pricked) from slab scraps.

32. To speed up the cutting process, there are such large and cunning wire saws.

33. On such machines it is possible to saw slabs into 10 blocks with a height of more than two meters.

36. The quality of the cut is perfect.

37. An Italian master supervises the setting up of the equipment.

38. To prevent passers-by from slipping on the tiles in winter, the surface is heat-treated.

39. Tiles become rough and not as slippery as polished granite.

40. So far, heat treatment is carried out manually, but a special machine has already been installed in the workshop, and soon this process will be carried out automatically.

41. New workshop, and finished products of the quarry. This curbstone is already being laid on Tverskaya Street. More than 3 kilometers of straight side and 500 meters of radius were ordered for it.

42. These curbs and tiles are 350 million years old, just a minute!

44. Chopped paving stones.

46. To deliver tiles and curbs to Tverskaya it took 364 trucks, which brought 7271 tons of granite - this is an area of 33.5 thousand square meters.

By weight, it's like spreading thirty Boeing 747s across Tverskaya..

50. At the Tashmurun quarry darker granite is mined than the Mansurovsky. The quarry itself is smaller.

54. Kambulatovsky quarry.

56. This quarry ranks first in terms of the efficiency of production of cubic meters of products per worker.

58. Yuzhno-Sultaevsky quarry with large beautiful cranes.

60. In general, I have everything. I would just like to clarify that if you choose granite instead of concrete, this does not mean that everything will automatically be fine. Nothing like this. Without the right styling technology, anything will fall apart. If you make a backing of shit and branches, then after the first winter the sidewalk / steps / curbs will float and burst from the uneven load.

62. It is not enough to buy a granite curb, it still needs to be correctly installed. This curb, albeit crooked, was installed 10 years ago.

63. And this is his age, a concrete border.

64. This is how it is, granite. Meet on the streets of Moscow, Novosibirsk, Salekhard, Tyumen, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Astana, Baku and so on according to the list.

65. So you will walk along Tverskaya or any other reconstructed street, remember that you are touching a history that is 350 million years old!

66. Thank you for your attention!

When writing the text, an article from the site was used

- = Prepared for the benefit of the "My Street" project = -

Today we'll talk about sawing ... Who and how saws for the My Street program. Meet, in the photo, a person who is very similar to Vladimir Putin, and he is to blame for everything.

It is he and dozens of his colleagues in the Urals who extract granite almost around the clock, and then saw, saw and saw. So that Muscovites have a tile under their feet!

Few people know, but thanks to a large-scale street reconstruction program in Bashkiria, hundreds of jobs have been created: new industries have appeared, new quarries have begun to be developed, and expensive foreign equipment has been purchased.

Recently I went and saw how everything was going on. Where tiles for Moscow are born.

The Mansurovskoe granite deposit is located in the east of Bashkortostan (this is in the southern part of the Urals, if your geography is bad). The easiest way to come here is from Magnitogorsk, which I did. The places here are gorgeous.

Local villages

The Mansurovskoye field is the largest in Russia for the extraction of light gray granite. It has been in development since the 1980s.

The granite mined here is considered unique because of its color and age. It was formed about 350 million years ago. It is one of the oldest granites on the planet.

According to geologists, the explored reserves of the deposit will last another 200 years. All of Russia can be rolled into granite;)

Granite is taken out of the quarry in the form of large rectangular blocks. The larger and smoother such a block, the more convenient it is to work with it and the higher its cost. By the way, anyone can buy a granite block.

But chipping off a good chunk of granite is not an easy task. Remember that granite is one of the strongest and densest materials.

There are several methods for separating a granite block from a large block. For example, you can cut a large piece using large gas burners. The composition of granite includes quartz, which peels off and flies off under the influence of temperature. Thanks to this, the burner gradually cuts through the granite. The more quartz in granite and the larger its grains, and the faster the rock is cut.

There is another way: along the line of the future fault, narrow deep holes are drilled in the monolith, which are called boreholes. Then explosives are placed in these holes. It detonates relatively softly and thus separates a solid piece of granite from the monolith.

You can also saw off a large piece of granite with a diamond wire. This option is more gentle, but it takes quite a long time. The rope is passed through the drilled holes, and then the installation is started, which begins to spin it quickly. Scrolling speed is approximately 30-40 m / s. And in a few hours of work, the rope cuts through the granite an even, neat cut.

So, a large piece has been sawed off, what to do next? Now it needs to be divided into smaller blocks so that it is convenient to transport and handle them. This is done manually. Wedges are driven into the granite along the line of the future fault, and in the end the rock cracks and a smaller block is separated from a large piece. Breaking lumps in this way is very hard work.

Finished granite blocks are taken to the workshops. There they will be sawed and processed.

Here is one of the sawmills. It was built a year ago, thanks to the program "My Street"

The brought granite blocks are first cut into slabs of the required thickness, depending on what is going to be produced from them. This can be done, for example, using a wire saw. All equipment here is new, it was purchased under Moscow contracts

Scroll very quickly in the machine steel cables with diamond elements. They descend lower and lower, gradually cutting the granite block into even slabs.

During the cutting process, the stone and ropes are continuously poured with cold water. This is for cooling and removing granite dust.

On such machines it is possible to saw blocks of 10 slabs with a height of more than two meters. Please note that modern machines allow you to make not only even cuts, but also according to a given razius. Earlier in Russia they did not know how to do this. Now you have bought the equipment and you can cut, for example, curved curbs.

The cuts are perfectly straight.

You can also cut the blocks with a familiar circular saw. In this case, the block is placed in the machine in the same way, and a saw with a dozen circular discs starts to ride on it.

This is a rather long process - in one pass, the discs are lowered only one centimeter into the granite stone.

After cutting, the granite is sent for further processing. Now from them will be cut facing and sidewalk slabs, curbs and everything else.

Granite is very dense and hard, so it does not crumble during the cutting process, and the edges are perfectly flat.

The saw blades and the granite itself are continuously poured with cold water. It washes away granite dust and cools the tool.

The last cut.

And it turns out a beautiful and neat granite paving slabs... We have never done anything like this in such volumes.

Final processing.

On the street, meanwhile, paving stones are made from scraps of granite blocks.

It is made by hand, carefully chipping off the edges so that a piece of granite turns out to be a cubic shape of the desired size. Such paving stones are called chipped.

By the way, Mansurovsky granite is the brightest of all types of granite that are mined in Russia. At the same time, it changes its color depending on the type of processing. If polished, it will turn slightly greenish, after spot treatment it will turn white, and after fire treatment it will become light gray. Granite is also processed to make it rough. This is needed, for example, on ramps.

This is the surface after processing. In order not to slip in winter.

Abroad, Mansurovsky granite is the most popular of all granites that are mined in Russia. Due to its light color, it is often compared to marble.

Granite processing enterprises are now developing quite steadily, and this is largely due to the 2014 crisis. Due to the jump in the dollar, it became very unprofitable to buy granite abroad, and therefore customers began to turn to Russian manufacturers, who offered prices almost two times lower. Mansurovsky was lucky in the same way. After the launch of the My Street program, the production of granite here has doubled - up to 6 thousand cubic meters per month.

The company decided to use the money raised from the first orders for the purchase of new equipment and the construction of additional workshops. The industry began to develop gradually, and related enterprises for the production of packaging, wire rod, timber, various equipment, etc.

The number of workers in the quarry also increased from 300 to 400 people. In general, more than 4,000 people are currently working on the production of granite for Moscow throughout the Urals.

Many of you have probably seen the Mankurovsky granite. It can be found on the streets of Novosibirsk, Salekhard, Tyumen, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Astana, Baku and many others. There is also a lot of it in Moscow, especially on the reconstructed streets. In particular, he was laid on Tverskaya. In addition to it, 4 more types of granite from other Ural quarries are used. In total, the Ural quarries supply Moscow with about 90% of all the necessary tiles, curbs and paving stones. The remaining 10% is brought from the Karelian fields.

Like this. The next time you go for a walk along Tverskaya, know that under your feet you have excellent Ural granite, which is already about 350 million years old.

By Dmitry Chistoprudov

Bashkiria. Quiet and picturesque places of the South Urals. In the villages, consider selling potatoes, river fish and fresh kumis for nothing. Beauty! But if you turn off the road onto some dusty primer, you will definitely find yourself in some kind of production, cut or quarry.

Meet - this is granite. Igneous rock. Granite is one of the densest, hardest and toughest rocks on earth. It is widely used in construction as a facing and road material.

The Mansurovskoye field is the largest in the country for the extraction of block stone. Mansurovsky granite is mined in a single place, near the Bashkir city of Uchaly. This type of rock is considered to be one of the oldest granites in Russia and on the entire planet, with a geological age of 350 million years. According to geologists, the proven reserves of the field will last another 200 years.

The lightest of all Russian granites is mined here. For its soft wavy texture and milky light gray color, Mansurovsky granite is often compared to marble, it is not for nothing that it conquered the international space and is considered one of the most popular "made in Russia" granites abroad.

The method of extracting granite blocks is different from the ones I am used to in iron ore, limestone quarries or coal mines. If in the latter the mineral is hammered, crumbled and crushed, then here the opposite is true. The geological features of the bedding of the rock make it possible to extract it in sufficiently large blocks, which are convenient to work with in the future. This explains the relatively low cost of such a beautiful and high-quality material, although, of course, the technology of casting from concrete is cheaper.

The more a block is chipped off, the more it costs. But not everything is as easy as it seems. Granite is one of the most durable rocks for a reason. The average density of the rock is 2600 kg / m3, 3. To break off such an even piece, you need to try hard.

The process of extracting granite is similar to the process of eating a truffle cake layer by layer. Granite occurs in layers. A part of the rock is separated from the massif, which is then divided into smaller blocks.

There are several methods for cutting off pieces of "cake". One of them is with large gas burners. The composition of granite includes quartz, which peels off and flies off under the influence of temperature. Thus, the burner gradually cuts through the granite. The more quartz in granite, the coarser the grains, and the faster the rock is cut. In this way, a cross-section of the piece is made.

A special chemical solution is poured into the drilled holes, which creates a "soft explosion". Inside the cramped hole, the mixture expands, splits and shifts the granite block.

All workers are local (albeit tanned).

Guys, let me take a picture of you now. Can you hit with sledgehammers somehow at the same time?

Listen, let's better give you a sledgehammer, and we'll take it off ourselves?

Gradually hammering in a series of wedges, the rock cracks and voila, the new block is detached.

There is another method - wire sawing. It is used in the Yuzhno-Sultaevsky quarry. The bottom line is that instead of gas burners, a tricky wire rope cutter is used.

The rope is passed through the drilled holes. Gradually, the installation drives off along the guides, and a huge piece is cut out in a few hours.

The finished blocks are transported by loaders or dump trucks to the sawmill of the quarry. Or sold as is to other sawmills.

Until recently, the entire stone mining industry was in a deplorable state. Due to the crisis, the demand for granite products in other cities has dropped. On the other hand, private traders began to look more and more towards the Russian stone. The course has changed, and the price of Chinese granite has risen sharply.

This is what a standard granite curb and tile workshop looked like two years ago.

After the launch of the My Street program, the Ural enterprises began to revive. If before the Moscow order the Mansurovsky quarry produced about 3000 cubic meters of granite per month, now this figure is twice as much.

With the first money from the orders, new equipment was purchased, new workshops were built. The high order volume has breathed life into the entire industry. Adjacent enterprises for the production of packaging, wire rod, timber, fuels and lubricants, various equipment, etc. The equipment, however, was purchased entirely imported (except for dump trucks and cranes). Here is such an import substitution, however.

Among other things, the number of workers in the quarries was increased. On Mansur from 300 to 400 people. We have to work in three shifts. In general, more than 4,000 people throughout the Urals are currently working on the production of granite for Moscow.

The mining companies are doing well. The money earned could have simply been swallowed or plundered, but as we can see, production is developing and equipment is being updated.

If marble slabs are cut in one go, then granite has to be cut for a very long time. The saw blade moves back and forth on the slab, lowering only 1 cm at a time. Large chunks of granite are sawn for hours.

Massive blocks are sawn into slabs, smaller blocks are dismantled onto curbs. Every little thing, such as paving stones, does not require large blanks and is sawn (or pricked) from slab scraps.

To speed up the sawing process, there are such large and cunning wire saws.

On such machines it is possible to saw slabs into 10 blocks with a height of more than two meters.

The cut quality is perfect.

To prevent passers-by from slipping on the tiles in winter, the surface is heat-treated.

The tiles become rough and not as slippery as polished granite.

So far, heat treatment is carried out manually, but a special machine has already been installed in the workshop, and soon this process will be carried out automatically.

New workshop, and finished products of the quarry. This curbstone is already being laid on Tverskaya Street. More than 3 kilometers of straight side and 500 meters of radius were ordered for it.

These curbs and tiles are 350 million years old, just a minute!

Chopped paving stones.

It took 364 trucks to deliver the tiles and curbs to Tverskaya, which brought 7271 tons of granite - this is an area of 33.5 thousand m2.

By weight, this is like spreading thirty Boeing 747s on Tverskaya Street.

In total, this year Moscow has ordered 47,500 tons of granite products. This is 2,374 trucks or 220,000 m2 of coverage. Which is comparable to the area of 30 football fields! This is to the question that Muscovites are too hungry. In a sense, this is certainly true, the capital is the richest city in the country, but the money for its renovation goes to the regions where production rises.

In terms of the cost of its extraction, processing and delivery, granite is inferior to similar concrete products. But there are also pluses:

Granite has low water absorption and high resistance to frost and dirt. Concrete absorbs moisture better.

The concrete is abraded, it has more dust than granite.

The concrete slabs are produced in the factory, while the granite is made by nature itself.

Each quarry has its own texture and shade of granite. If you look at the scheme of laying tiles on the streets of Moscow, you can see a certain pattern in the drawing. Tiles of different colors came from different quarries.

Darker granite is mined at the Tashmurun quarry than the Mansurovsky. The quarry itself is smaller.

Kambulatovsky quarry.

This quarry ranks first in terms of the efficiency of production of cubic meters of products per worker.

In general, I have everything. I would just like to clarify that if you choose granite instead of concrete, this does not mean that everything will automatically be fine. Nothing like this. Without the right styling technology, anything will fall apart. If you make a backing of shit and branches, then after the first winter the sidewalk / steps / curbs will float and burst from the uneven load.

It is not enough to buy a granite curb, it still needs to be correctly installed. This curb, albeit crooked, was installed 10 years ago.

And this is his age, a concrete border.

This is how it is, granite. Meet on the streets of Moscow, Novosibirsk, Salekhard, Tyumen, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, Astana, Baku and so on according to the list.

So you will be walking along Tverskaya or any other reconstructed street, remember that you are touching a history that is 350 million years old!

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