Who stole the data on rare earths in Karabakh?

Rare earth metals... In the last couple of years, only the lazy one hasn't talked about them. This category of minerals has come to the fore due to the rapid growth of technologies that depend on the use of rare earths. And the topic was especially relevant due to the fact that China has become the absolute leader in the extraction and processing of these resources.

In the 90s, the United States was among the leaders thanks to the California mine. However, the economic problems that befell the mine and the cessation of production for several years deprived the States of leadership points. China, which mined 31 thousand tons of rare earths thirty years ago, produced 270 thousand tons in 2024, and it is not possible to keep up with it in the near future. Whatever the reasons for this breakthrough in the West, the fact remains that today China controls not only the extraction, but also about 90 percent of the world's processed rare earth metals, and also has the largest facilities for their separation and purification, foreign media write.

Last year, production in the United States amounted to 46 thousand tons, but China remains the main supplier of rare earths to the United States. In 2023, its share in the American market was 70 percent.

Anyway, rare earths are a strategic resource today, and everyone is looking for them. The President of Belarus has instructed the government to start searching for rare earth metals and other resources in the republic. The Central Asian countries have found themselves at the epicenter of Western interest due to their vast reserves of this strategic raw material. In the near future, Donald Trump will meet with the leaders of the Central Asian countries in Washington, and it is expected that rare earths will become the main topic of discussions. It also turned out that there are many things in Ukraine. These riches were ignored until the country's rare earth reserves attracted the new head of the White House. It turns out that Ukraine has 21 of the 30 substances that the European Union defines as "critical raw materials," and reserves of these raw materials account for about 5 percent of the world. However, they have never been commercially developed, they were obtained only as by-products from the extraction of other metals.

The rare earth boom has swept the world. And involuntarily, we also had a legitimate question: are there such resources in Azerbaijan?

We'll leave the answer to the specialists. There is no such information in the public domain. However, during a web search, I came across an article published in the Armenian media in June 2011 by Igor Muradian. The article is kind of off-topic, but very interesting.

Igor Muradyan is one of those to whom the region owes the thirty-year conflict. He was the first leader of the Karabakh Committee and stood at the origins of the process of the separation of its ancestral territories from Azerbaijan. Muradian did not live to see the Second Karabakh War for two years and did not see the collapse of his brainchild. It's a pity.

An ardent nationalist told in an article about an honored geologist of the Azerbaijan SSR named Tsaturov. When, after the ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis in Armenia, Armenians had to leave Baku, Tsaturov's neighbors, Azerbaijanis, offered to help him take his valuable collection of art plates to the train station from where the train was leaving for Yerevan. Taking advantage of the friendly location of his neighbors, who knew how precious this collection was to him, the honored geologist decided in December 1988 to illegally export to Armenia the materials of geological exploration work carried out by various geological expeditions on the territory of Karabakh and in the surrounding areas, the very ones that were subsequently occupied by the Armenians. That is, the neighbors thought they were helping him take out the family heirloom in the boxes, not suspecting that they were contributing to the theft of valuable geological material and documents. 

In principle, there is nothing surprising in the behavior of honored geologist Tsaturyan, if we recall how many artifacts and other valuable materials were stolen by Armenian black diggers during the escape from the occupied territories during the offensive of the Azerbaijani army. Like Tsaturyan, these thieves exported all this with a certain calculation. In 1988, it was already clear that this time the conflict would not be resolved and Moscow was not going to stop Yerevan. Given the Soviet leadership's favor to the Armenians, it was expected that they would be able to achieve their goals and seize foreign lands. And then the information about the bowels will become very useful for Armenia, which has swollen on innocent blood. 

As can be learned from Muradian's article, among the materials illegally exported to Armenia was a report to the Azerbaijani government dated May 1968, which was later for some reason withdrawn from the geological fund of Azerbaijan and classified as "top secret." The author does not specify why the document was seized or how it got into Tsaturov's hands. The report contained information on the true reserves of precious and non-ferrous metals based on the results of a special Murovdag expedition conducted in the Karabakh region, as well as in Kalbajar, Lachin, Gubadli and Zangelan districts. The report indicated that these areas have the following reserves of A1+ B1 metals: gold - 1,250 tons, silver - 4,550 tons, copper - 1,840 thousand tons, lead - 660 thousand tons, zinc - 775 thousand tons, cobalt - 150,000 tons, chromium - 2,250 thousand tons (with taking into account the flanks - 3,500 thousand tons). The report also contains information about significant reserves of aluminum raw materials and iron ores with an iron content of up to 45-55 percent. There are numerous traces of rare earth elements - lithium, beryllium, and others.

In addition to this report, there were other notes on the presence of mineral water outlets, semiprecious and ornamental stones, spar, and natural coloring agents. There was also information about mineral deposits, including precious and non-ferrous metals.

In December 1988, these materials, according to Muradian, were placed in the geological fund of the Department of Geology of the Armenian SSR. Armenia was preparing for the occupation and declaration of these territories as its own, which was to be followed by the development of mineral resources. However, Armenia could not use the data, because in the winter of 1993, these materials were sold by one of the responsible government officials to a US citizen for $ 2,000. In the same winter, as Muradyan writes, Tsaturov himself died of exhaustion in incredibly difficult conditions before his 80th birthday, and no one knows where he is buried.

In 2011, Muradyan recalled this story in order to draw the attention of Yerevan and the separatist regime to what is in the depths of the occupied areas. He urged not to look at the lands around the former NKAO as a desert, because these are the richest lands. The Fizuli, Jabrayil, Kalbajar, and Lachin districts contain gold, copper, chromium, and silver, and there are even good oil forecasts in Fizuli, Jabrayil, and Aghdam.

By the way, during the years of occupation, the Armenian media repeatedly reported on the plans of Yerevan and Khankendi to start oil exploration in the occupied territories. It didn't come to that, because they needed foreign partners for such projects, and no serious oil producing company in the world would work in the occupied territories. Although in Soviet films we were often surprised to find oilmen with Armenian surnames and never with Azerbaijani ones, we did not know how to search for and extract oil in Armenia. In 2019, there was "joyful" news in the media - it was possible to obtain synthetic petroleum products from coal, which was illegally mined in the Agderinsky district, using new technologies. But they didn't have time to turn around. Grandiose plans remained unfulfilled.

Igor Muradyan wrote in 2011 about the geologist Tsaturov, who stole valuable materials from Baku, in order to explain to the aggressor what he managed to get hold of. It is necessary to create a geological survey in Karabakh, attract specialists from Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and foreign capital, pointed out the nationalist, who, due to his narrow mindset, does not understand why all this has not yet been done.

He died without finding an answer to this question.