Orlov Diamond: To Russia with Love

AUTHOR Akshay Chavan
PUBLISHED 27 June 2017
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A large number of Indians queue up at the Tower of London to see the Kohinoor diamond, which is a part of the British crown jewels. But in Moscow, Russia there is an even larger Indian diamond, also part of the crown jewels, which few people know of. The Orlov diamond, which was given to Catherine the Great, of Russia, by her lover Count Grigory Orlov in 1772 CE. It forms a part of the Russian crown jewels and is set in the Imperial Sceptre, used by Emperors of Russia till the Russian Revolution in 1918. A sceptre is an ornamental staff or wand, held by ruling monarchs in their hand as a symbol of authority. The 189.62 carat Orlov Diamond is a Golconda diamond mined at the famed Golconda diamond mines in the Godavari delta. But we still don’t know the real story of how the diamond left Golconda and made its way to Russia. According to one popular story, the Orlov diamond was one of the two diamonds set as the eyes in a giant statue of Brahma, in the temple of Sri Ranganathaswamy at Srirangam in the Tiruchirapalli district of Tamil Nadu in the 17th century CE. The 189.62 carat Orlov Diamond is a Golconda diamond It is said that one stormy night, a French adventurer, broke into the temple, stole the diamond and then escaped to Madras (Chennai), where he sold it to an English captain for £2,000. The captain then t ...