Kolyvan Stone-Cutting Plant

From 1802 the works in the village of Kolyvan made decorative pieces for palaces from local coloured stones — jasper, agate, porphyry, marble, granite, breccia: vases, fireplaces, torcheres, columns. The plant bears the name of Ivan Polzunov, creator of Russia's first steam engine, whose life was tied to the Altai works. Kolyvan vases stand in the Hermitage and the great palaces of the country; it was they that once made Altai stone famous worldwide. From the mid-twentieth century the plant developed the cutting of jasper, porphyrites, quartzites and marbles for technical and artistic pieces — production is alive to this day, a rarity for a works of this age. Today people come to see the museum with its enormous vases, the working workshops and the dam of the mill pond — hydraulic engineering of the same era. The village of Kolyvan itself is a former industrial capital of the Altai with the atmosphere of unhurried history.