North Macedonia’s Pink Ruby Remains Stuck in Grey Area
Source: Balkan Insight
State institutions are also customers
In the capital, Skopje, on the other hand, the only legal craftsman and seller of this stone is in the small artisan workshop named “Macedonian ruby – Deko”.
Its owner, Dean Shkartov-Deko, is mentioned in a report on the Macedonian ruby written by the National Geological Institute. Deko has a website, which carries the domain “mkrubin”.
We visited the workshop in the centre of the city. Shkartov said he became interested in this mineral after his stay in Italy, where he learned a lot about precious stones.
“What jade means to China, what opal means to Australia, turquoise to Iran and the US, that is the ruby to Macedonia,” one of the promo materials found in Shkartov’s workshop says.
State institutions have been ordering Macedonian ruby from his company for years. Governments, the Presidential Office and other state institutions like the Culture Ministry and the Secretariat for European Affairs are among past buyers.
On the shelves in the shop are pieces of unworked Macedonian ruby and ruby souvenirs adorned in filigree.
Shkartov explains that they managed to trademark their ruby products 14 years ago, despite the ruby itself not being regulated.
To overcome the long-standing legal mess over this stone, Shkartov says it would be best to pass a special law on the Macedonian ruby.
“We have something that no other country has. It is not found in Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro or Greece. It was found in the Alps, in Scotland, and in Norway, but only small pebbles, to stand in a museum. Only in Macedonia, for 15-16 years, have we had daily artisanal production with Macedonian rubies,” Shkartov says.
The Macedonian ruby is good for a German or Italian customer who perhaps has a ruby from Myanmar, India, the Congo or Tanzania, but does not have a European ruby, he explains.
Shkartov emphasizes that the sale of Macedonian ruby, combined with filigree, another landmark craft, has been particularly successful in the lakeside town of Ohrid, North Macedonia’s biggest tourist hotspot.
The original article: belongs to Balkan Insight .
