Most people picture pearls growing inside oysters—and they’re right: marine and freshwater mollusks are the main source of pearls. But mollusks aren’t the only source.
Believe it or not, stones that match pearls in composition and appearance can form in caves. One such “pearl” cave exists near Kizel—a Ural mining town—on the banks of the Viashera River. Locals often call it the Viashera Cave. In this remarkable cave, which stretches more than 800 meters, visitors can find yellowish or whitish stones slightly larger than peas—these are cave pearls.
While the global harvest of marine pearls numbers in the hundreds of thousands each year, only a few dozen cave pearls have ever been discovered. That makes each new find valuable to researchers.
There are currently only a few such caves in our country, but local historians may uncover more in the future.
