On Saturday 25/01/2025 at 10:30 PM, Vladimír Kondratěnko was the guest of a unique talk show Night Microforum on Czech Radio Dvojka. The interview offered an engaging look at Vladimír's journey from his first steps in the diamond industry to the current challenges facing the business and the entire industry. They discussed what makes diamonds unique, technological innovations, and the need for continuous education for professionals in the field.
About the Night Microforum program
Night Micro Forum is a unique talk show that brings interviews full of inspiring life stories, memories and current insights. The moderators of the Saturday edition, this time prepared by Marta Marinová, invite guests from various fields, whose stories will make you think, contemplate and often put a smile on your face.
Listen to the entire interview directly on the Czech Radio website:
Guest: Vladimir Kondratenko, diamond expert
The Night Mikroforum was created in February 2011 and has since become an integral part of the evening broadcast. Every day, it offers listeners moments of peace and inspiration before falling asleep.
Program transcript:
Marta Marinová
Guest: Vladimir Kondratenko
Marta: And the night microforum begins, to which Marta Marinová welcomes you. My guest today is, of course, in a field that is somewhat hidden from most people, he is dedicated to something that is said to be eternal, a sign of luxury and elegance that may seem unattainable, but is definitely exceptional. It is a diamond and we will talk about it with internationally recognized expert Vladimír Kondratěnek.
Marta: Vladimir, good evening, welcome.
Vladimír: Good evening, thank you for the invitation and good evening to you and the listeners.
Marta: You are, you are still young, but you started with those diamonds when you were actually a boy. How is it possible, how did a young boy get the idea to do something like that?
Vladimír: It came to me absolutely by chance and it had such a light story, because since I was 16 or 17 I had been thinking about what to do with some money that I knew I would receive on my 18th birthday. It wasn't a big amount, it was about 200,000 CZK and coincidentally I saw several of my friends who received a similar amount from their parents on their 18th birthday lose the money very quickly, and spend it on nonsense very quickly.
Marta: Yeah, like that, huh.
Vladimír: And I said to myself that I can't let this happen, so I started thinking about what I would buy that would last, what I would put the money in, and I was attracted to gold, but then I started to be more attracted to diamonds. But I found out that I didn't know anything about them, so after I talked to my father about it, he told me that I should, that it was an interesting topic and that I should somehow get my bearings in it before I spent any money, and that was the beginning of the journey that basically completely excited me and I'm learning, I'm learning new things in this field all the time, even today.
Marta: Dear listeners, this is how our guest today's love for diamonds began, and that is Vladimir Kondratenko, can I say a gemologist?
Vladimír: Gemologist is a broad term and I would rather say diamond expert, because my specialization is narrow in that I only deal with diamonds. Gemologist deals with other precious stones.
Marta: Okay, so a diamond expert.
[Musical part of the show]
Marta: Dear listeners, there is still a night microforum for you, or rather it is starting, you could say, and we are talking to Vladimir Kondratenko, a diamond expert, about diamonds. And Vladimir, you said that you actually started to educate yourself a little so that you would know what to invest in, so where did you get your education in this field?
Vladimír: The first steps led to a completely introductory gemological, or rather diamond evaluation course, which lasted only a week, it was in London at the Gem-a association, which is currently engaged in education in this field. I was there in I don't know if it was spring break, I think it was spring break and I was still in high school. I was very excited about the field there, I met an incredibly diverse group of people who were from all over the world, they arrived there for the course, I was the youngest there at that moment.
But it was actually interesting that we were all there at the beginning of our journey of diamond appraisal, if I don't remember back then, it was a really, really great beginning and I think I only started to understand the field better a few years later, especially after other gemological courses followed.
The practice in the evaluation of diamonds is when you really have the opportunity to apply what I learned. Then I went back to some things many times, I still have all those textbooks, there are a lot of things, now the whole industry is in such a dynamic shift, so a lot of technological procedures, especially in the identification of natural diamonds and their differentiation from synthetic ones, that's it, that's the part of the evaluation segment that is changing very dynamically.
Vladimír: I didn't have to learn anything new, it's probably more of a field that you have to learn as long as you do it. It's like with other precious stones, there are many modifications to diamonds, and now there are many synthetics on the market. It is necessary to determine at the beginning whether it is a diamond at all, then identify whether it is natural or synthetic, and then, if it is natural, you still have to determine whether it has been modified in some way or whether it is in the form in which it originated in nature.
Marta: What do you actually need to know, what diplomas do you need to have, or what reputation do you need to have to become a member of the Belgian Diamond Exchange in Antwerp, as you did when you were 22?
Vladimír: it's more of a prestigious matter than a necessity. Membership in the diamond exchange opens doors for you and it's a kind of demonstration that you are active in the field, that you are dedicated to it and it's a guarantee, how to say it so that it doesn't sound like a cliché, but maybe expertise, expertise, but more from the point of view of the business than from the point of view of the evaluation of diamonds. Many of my friends, who are much older and more experienced and have been in the field in Antwerp for more than 30 years, understood that I am a big enthusiast of the gemological aspects. Because the determination, or rather, when you try to screen those diamonds and determine which ones are 100% natural and which ones are potentially synthetic or laboratory-made, there are many such unclear points with many of those devices.
You can, for example, determine 100% that this diamond is natural, but then when you make a large number of really small diamonds, for example one millimeter in size, at the end of the work you are left with, to put it simply, a pile of stones that are simply not clearly identifiable at first glance; you have to go a little deeper to separate them.
So I often get phone calls from these friends who are much further along in the business, but they know that I follow the latest trends and I am also in contact with many gemologists from different parts of the world and follow these trends.
Marta: So what or who actually decided on the supreme status of diamonds, is there any history to it?
Vladimír: The history of the first mentions was already now, people have been fascinated by diamonds for basically thousands of years, there was an active trade in diamonds already d00 years ago. At that time, those diamonds were not processed in any way, they were in their raw form and were perceived as very rare, because natural diamonds are rare.
Subsequently, for a very long time diamonds were only a matter of royalty. The fundamental turning point, when it was possible for an ordinary person to buy a diamond, came with the discoveries of new deposits, especially in South Africa, at the end of the 19th century.
Marta: Where are the largest deposits in the world today?
Vladimir: Today, the deposits are in Canada, in Africa, and there are also large deposits in Russia, which is currently a very complicated topic.
Marta: Maybe there are some new ones emerging, or maybe some traditional ones have already been mined?
Vladimír: Yes, one of those very famous mines was in Australia, it was called Argile, and mining there had been going on since the 1970s and was stopped about five years ago. That mine is now closed and it is very famous for the fact that it contained pink diamonds.
Marta: And those are the famous pink diamonds from the Arguile mine, they're a real rarity, aren't they?
Vladimír: It's a great rarity, but that mine had an incredibly significant impact on the entire industry, because apart from the fact that there were pink ones there, which in reality, in relation to the total amount of millions of carats of diamonds that were mined from that mine every year, there were really few pink ones. However, the majority of those diamonds were brown.
These are the colors that are now called champagne or cognac, this is quite interesting, which has happened repeatedly in this business. It's a term that was just coined by the mining company that owns, owned the mine and they found that they had an incredible amount of these brown diamonds there and at the time it was more or less considered to be like not even jewelry quality.
So they did the marketing that they were champagne cognac diamonds, the dark brown ones are cognac, the lighter ones are champagne and they basically created that market and that demand. Those brown diamonds are beautiful when used in jewelry and basically they succeeded in that and today it is part of the jewelry industry.
Marta: And the price has skyrocketed?
Vladimír: The price of brown diamonds is lower, lower than white ones, but when I incorporate them into the jewelry design, they are beautiful, they are still a level 10 on the hardness scale.
Yes, of course, but maybe also, I would just like to mention that the amount of brown diamonds that the mine started producing at that time was so large that the traditional diamond cutting centers were not sufficient in terms of capacity and manpower, and it basically caused the emergence of an incredibly large industry, that is diamond cutting in India, and it was precisely because of those cheap diamonds originally from the Argail mine, the brown ones, and today India is the absolute leader in diamond cutting in the Gujarat region in the city of Surat, there are around 1 million cutters, and the Indian cutters have absolutely taken over, how to say it, they are now absolutely dominant in that cutting market.
[Music part]
Marta: And the guest is Vladimir Kondratenko, a diamond expert. And we were talking about how India is now the absolute leader in diamond cutting. But India was actually a source of diamond mining in the past.
Vladimír: Yes, India has a very rich history and relationship with precious stones as such. This is because diamonds were originally mined there and were transported from India, often through Venice, to Europe and the West. However, there are no active diamond mines in India today.
Marta: And why is it that there, that there have been so many opportunities for those grinders, because there must also be some education, surely there are strict criteria?
Vladimir: I have many, many friends from India, I have been to India several times, they are very clever, very intelligent, very studious, ambitious, the country is on the rise. When I was there for the first time about 13 years ago, I look at how it looks there today, and there is an absolutely obvious move forward, perhaps in all aspects.
It came about very, very organically, very, very quickly from those companies that started out like they did originally, most of those grinders were originally farmers. And it's their current new class of businessmen and traders who are very proud of the fact that they basically made it to the top in that India, which was, but from my understanding of how it works in India now, the caste system is what I would say is a long time ago, or I don't want to say completely long ago, but it's basically gone and I belong to history.
There's more of a meritocracy there, where a person can build their position through what they can do in their life, they don't have to be born into a rich family, and these, uh, people from this area, which is interesting, is that the Gujarat area is very economically important, and the current prime minister of Indie fashion also comes from there.
Marta: Vladimir, what does a diamond actually look like when it's mined? Isn't it that beautiful, clear thing that dazzles you with its shine?
Vladimir: it depends, for example, alluvial diamonds have the typical eight edges, 12 edges, they form very interesting structures, the structures on the surface of the surface of those rough diamonds are very typical, that you have such triangles there and you always get closer as if under a microscope or under a magnifying glass, so you see that there is a triangle within a triangle and it is always upside down inside. Now there can be several of them, as if there are such structures on the surface.
Marta: Perhaps what is even more interesting is how natural diamonds are or were created?
Vladimír: Natural diamonds take a very long time to form, so a natural diamond takes 1 to 3 million years to form, and then it takes another year on average before it reaches the depth from which it can be mined. The average age of diamonds is 1 billion years. The youngest diamonds that have been mined and their age has been determined are 150 to 200 million years old, so they are the youngest.
This essentially results in its value, which is probably the answer to rarity, but the idea that the diamond is eternal, because it shows us that in the form in which you are holding it in your hand now, it has been in that form for more than 100 million years.
Marta: That's amazing. When people talk about the structure, does a good grinder, if he doesn't actually ruin anything, just copy the structure of the stone?
Vladimír: No, no, no, no, the process is very, how to say it, high-tech these days. The rough diamonds are scanned, 3D models are made, first, when it's still there, when it's part of the rock, the kimberlite is on the diamond, as if it's not completely cleaned yet, then it's scanned, where the kimberlite ends and where the diamond begins, so that when it's separated, a piece of the diamond doesn't accidentally get chipped off.
Then the diamonds are X-rayed, a complex 3D model is created, where the inclusions are inside, which in some cases affect the strength of the crystal itself. And then another very interesting and important thing is that the internal stress in the diamond is monitored, this is often monitored with crossed polarizing filters, when the stress is clearly visible in the diamond, this is important for the cutters, because it could crack, you could shatter the diamond.
I'm not a cutter, so I know this part from a theoretical level, but basically they have to know where the internal stresses in the diamond are in order to know how to split the diamond, to cut it. Previously, diamonds were split, today they are cut with a laser.
Martha: Mmm.
Vladimír: Yes, that was the main one, one of the main technological innovations, which also made a fundamental leap forward in the 1970s, improving the quality of cutting. Because up until then, cutters were limited by the growth lines along which they could cut the diamond.
Marta: Mhm, because one rough diamond never produces one polished diamond, there are always more. You actually talked about the cutting, the color, how it looks when you get it in your hands, so how is a diamond actually evaluated, according to what or what are all the criteria there?
Vladimír: The basic ones that you will read about are the 4 c's, they are 4c's because in English you have karat, i.e. carat weight. Interestingly, in English a karat as a unit of weight is sc, while carats as a unit of gold weight is sk, so in Czech it is oboíská.
Then the second is clarity, that is the amount of visible inclusions or characteristics in the diamond that are visible and negatively affect the beauty of the diamond. Maybe it's wrong that I said negatively, they are essentially characteristics of clarity, because you have inclusions that are very beautiful, very interesting and those inclusions can also indicate, indicate, certainly not be decisive, that it is a natural diamond or a synthetic one.
And then you have the color, which is a little more complicated because you have a scale of white colorless diamonds, d to z, where d is the highest color, i.e. the absence of color, that is, the diamonds are colorless, z is a tinge of yellow or brown, so the closer you are to z, the stronger the toning to brown or yellow, especially yellow, and then there is the cut, which is the quality of the cut.
Marta: Diamonds and Vladimir, I know that you specialize a lot in diamond assessment, identification, and that you actually spread a lot of awareness about how to recognize them and how to recognize synthetic diamonds. Where did the idea of creating synthetic diamonds come from, or as I read, lab-grown?
Vladimír: Yes, yes, so the correct gemological name, which is no longer used so much in the trade or business, the correct one is synthetic diamonds, the common one is lab-grown or Laboratory grown diamonds. It's interesting, many people, when they hear about it, have the feeling that it's something new, that it's something new, but it's actually nothing new. And those clients always bought diamonds because they bought them from someone they trust, where they are sure that it's natural, ideally supported by a reputable certificate, ideally GIA.
Vladimír: The first diamond was synthesized in 1954 in the USA and it was done using the high pressure and high temperature method, that is, it is the abbreviation HPHT (high pressure, high temperature), and it is a method that simulates the conditions in which diamonds are formed in nature, when underground they are exposed to the conditions of high pressure and high temperature for a much longer period of time.
Today there are two methods, one is completely different from how diamonds are created in nature, it is CVD, chemical vapor deposition, growth from a gaseous mixture and diamonds are still produced using this method of high pressure, high temperature. This is very interesting because both natural diamonds and synthetic diamonds have different properties in certain aspects, but these are minor nuances, more like they react differently to ultraviolet radiation, otherwise they have the same hardness, the same optical parameters, properties, they are indistinguishable to the naked eye without a magnifying glass.
Which is what is causing such confusion and concern on the market today that when someone buys a natural diamond, they won't be able to tell it apart from a synthetic one. The reality is that it doesn't change that much from my point of view, because from a distance of one meter you basically can't tell a quality cubic zirconia from a diamond, especially if it's in a piece of jewelry and you've had it on your hand for, I don't know, a week, it hasn't been specially cleaned, so it's not that easy to identify.
Marta: Mhm, yeah. But I assume the synthetic diamond has a completely different value or valuation than the natural one?
Vladimir: Yes, yes, that's right, logically speaking. That was clear from the beginning.
Vladimír: The fact is that when I was starting out, when I was on the GIA course, the Gemological Institute of America, they showed us that it is the highest certification organization or institution, it is the gemological institution, GIA, the Gemological Institute of America, which was founded as a non-profit organization, and is still non-profit today, whose mission is to educate the market, to ensure a certain amount of transparency or to ensure transparency in this segment, not only in the diamond segment, but in precious stones in general, and pearls were also founded in the 1930s, and in the 1950s, GIA came up with the idea of standardizing the diamond grading system.
This is interesting because 100 years ago, when they wanted to do business, when a New York dealer wanted to buy a diamond from a Chicago dealer, they didn't really agree on the phone because there wasn't a single benchmark or standard or language that they could agree on. There were different ratings, but GIA saw that it just didn't match up, so they made a standard, a clarity rating, Flawless, FL to I3, color D to Z.
They made sets of master stones for this, meaning there is a master stone of d color, e color, f color, and it is a standard, it is the universal language of the industry today, when you pick up the phone and talk to a person in Antwerp or New York and you know what you are talking about.
The problem is, however, that in the 1970s, other gemological laboratories began to emerge, focused primarily on diamond evaluation and certification, and they basically all adopted the nomenclature, the language that GIA essentially gave to the jewelry industry, but those standards are associated with that language, but the other gemological laboratories are already applying their own standards.
So a common problem is that someone compares not only the stone itself, but only the rating on paper, on the certificate, which is fine when comparing a GI certificate with a GI certificate, there are also minor differences, each diamond is unique, but when you compare a GIA certified diamond with an HRD certified diamond, let alone an EGL International certified diamond, you are not comparing the same thing.
Martha: Mmm.
Vladimír: It's basically a different unit of measurement, gemological laboratories don't even hide the fact that they have their own standards, even though they use the same terminology and nomenclature, which can be a bit confusing for many customers or interested parties at first.
Marta: When synthetic diamonds are now coming onto the market, is there any argument that they are more ecological, that they are more ethical?
Vladimír: That's right, there are several paradoxes, the first paradox is that it's more ethical, there are many, many of them, it's been a topic lately that seems to fascinate journalists and then customers, that they like to read that the end of blood diamonds, there is a more ethical, more ecological option.
But the reality is never that clear and easy, because what are blood diamonds? Conflict diamonds, or blood diamonds, were mainly associated with the conflict in Sierra Leone in the mid-1990s or after the mid-1990s, which is no longer ongoing, so to put it simply, with the exception of Zimbabwe, no conflict diamonds currently come from Africa. If we can say that conflict diamonds come from anywhere, I would personally say that it would only come from the Russian Federation.
Martha: Mmm.
Vladimír: But there are many arguments, we will not exploit Africa, we will not exploit it by buying diamonds, but that is such a simplification, when they portray the business with natural diamonds as if we were in the times of colonialism. Of course, in the times of colonialism, all raw materials were plundered from the African continent in a very unethical way, not just diamonds, and just like today, there is legitimate mining of other mineral products.
Marta: So, is it the source of livelihood for the whole country?
Vladimír: Exactly, for example Botswana and I was at a conference in Antwerp about two months ago, where the main guest was the president of Botswana. This is a country that entered its independence as one of the poorest, but today it is one of the richest. 80% of their GDP comes from the mining and sale of diamonds. Here you can see how these African countries are very aware that this is their wealth and they are building infrastructure, building hospitals, simply building education and it has a concrete impact on the local communities.
Vladimír: Well, then a salesperson comes along and starts to tell you, in marketing terms, that diamonds from Africa are bloody evil, he never gives any specific example of anything, because there is none. I often read absurd empty expressions on Instagram, like up to 45% of employees in the diamond industry in Africa are children, and now there is a photo of children mining something, that's it, it's just nonsense, the source is not stated, it is not stated where, what, how.
Yes, that's a fashion, yes, but the reality is different, we buy our synthetic diamond and we won't, we won't use Africa, but what happens is you buy the synthetic diamond that is made in China or India and you basically ensure that Africa doesn't see a single dollar from your diamond purchase.
Martin Rapaport, who is the main analyst of this industry, has a very interesting thesis that caught my attention and he says that diamonds are here, I remember a quote like this, God gave diamonds to the poorest people in the world and at the same time aroused a desire for them in the richest people. Bridging this gap is tikkun olam, making the world a better place.
Marta: And when it comes to the ecological aspect, has that also improved significantly?
Vladimír: The ecological aspect is very important and so, there is nothing wrong with synthetic or lab-grown diamonds, so that it doesn't sound like the product is somehow absolutely fascinating to me. I was, when I first saw the synthetic ones, I was completely excited about it and I am very attracted to it, as if it could bring us to the future, especially in terms of IT technologies, because that is the driving force of this development.
For example, Amazon has done a project where they want to use diamond to connect their data centers, so it will have a lot of applications in the technology industry. It's a great product if you want to have a beautiful piece of jewelry with a beautiful stone, but you know, it's basically like fashion jewelry, yeah, it doesn't have that value because you can make an infinite amount of those diamonds.
Martha: Mmm.
Vladimír: And it's very interesting that many people will tell you to buy it because it's more environmentally friendly. In order for a synthetic diamond to be called environmentally friendly, the energy used to produce it must be demonstrably from renewable sources.
Martha: Hmm.
Vladimir: I would say that it is very difficult to do this and only a very, very small fraction, I would say in units of a percentage, of those producers are able, or are really able to finance it in such a way that they have those renewable sources, otherwise most of them are produced in China, where most of the electricity is from burning coal.
Marta: So, dear listeners, you learned about synthetic diamonds from our guest today, and that is Vladimír Kondratěnko.
[Musical part of the show]
Marta: Dear listeners, there is a night microforum, today we are talking to Vladimir Kondratenko, an expert on diamonds. What impact do they have, because it is not just about the beauty of the stones, it is also a business, what impact do they have on the market for natural diamonds?
Vladimír: The natural diamond market has experienced a very challenging period in the last two years, the prices of natural diamonds have been falling and it is precisely because of this that many synthetic diamonds have entered the market, but I am convinced that the market is at a turning point, when it will be divided into these two segments. Today, the price difference is so significant that it is already evident that this is a completely different product.
Martha: Hmm.
Vladimír: I think about it a lot and I was surprised by how the market perceives it, because when I thought about it 10, 7, 5 years ago, what impact it would have, I thought that there would be a certain expectation of what would happen and that it wouldn't have that much of an impact, but when I look back at what happened when cultured pearls appeared on the market in the 1920s, or what happened when synthetic variants of rubies and sapphires appeared and then also synthetic variants of emeralds.
So today, as a thought, I am convinced that it will be similar to those rubies and sapphires, because the demand for those low-quality rubies and sapphires has decreased, while the price of those high-quality rubies and sapphires is still rising. In my opinion, it will already be visible with those diamonds, the biggest competition that natural diamonds have is in those low qualities.
Marta: And you said in the song, the listeners don't know this, a beautiful line, that the most beautiful thing about real diamonds is that you are holding a really big piece of history in your hand, which lasted hundreds of millions of years. What colors has nature given to real diamonds?
Vladimír: Diamonds are found or can be found in more or less all colors of the spectrum. It is such an often overlooked thing that the average person who has an idea of diamonds thinks that they are white, colorless, but the rarest ones are the colored ones. The rarest ones include red and blue diamonds.
It's also interesting what causes the color. For example, the yellow color is caused by the addition of nitrogen in the crystal lattice of the diamond, while the blue color is caused by the addition of boron.
Martha: Mmm.
Vladimír: with the red color, there it is, there it is, there it is caused more by internal tension in the stone. the attractive ones, then it always has degrees, there the scale of the evaluation is completely different, it is an evaluation based on saturation, tones, so you can have dark yellows, those are not so attractive visually, so they are cheaper, but the most attractive ones are canary yellow, vivid yellow, that is beautiful.
Marta: You took us today, Vladimir, to a completely different world. Dear listeners, our guest today was Vladimir Kondratenko, an expert on diamonds. I wish you much success in your work, and may your evident enthusiasm endure.
