The first information about the national collection is connected with the period of Peter the Great's transformative activity — the construction of the stone capital on the Neva, the discovery of ores and gems in the Urals and Siberia, the creation of the Kunzkammer, to which he was given a small personal collection of stone products. Later on, palace museums were established, where mineral collections were also located. Minerals collection, as well as mineralogical knowledge, was in fashion. One of the first mineralogical collections, as A. E. Fersman wrote, was the "hills" of the Ural minerals of the XVIII century, which aroused interest in the little-known rich land located on the border of Europe and Asia. A large collection, systematized by Academician P. S. Pallas, was housed in the Hermitage. The Russian Mineralogical School was founded; in 1817 the Mineralogical Society was formed. The development of industry and trade stimulated the desire to collect collections of gems, which spread to the middle classes and intellectuals.
Many collectors" samples were found in the process of extraction of various minerals. At the beginning of the 19th century, scientific collections began to be collected by universities, institutes, museums, as well as individual stone lovers. At the turn of the century, the collections were collected by the Ural Society of Natural History Lovers, the Moscow partnership "Nature and School", etc. Artisans mining of the collection material and its processing until 1914 was carried out only in the Urals. The system of collection of material on deposits (mines) developed at that time allowed providing domestic and also foreign museums with unique copies of minerals and crystals, promoted their scientific studying and even now causes admiration.
The low-production technology-based mainly on manual labor and limited use of explosives were of some importance here, which contributed to the preservation of the collection material. At the end of the last century, the famous Ural writer D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak highlighted the state of collecting quite fully. "For the mineralogical collection there is every stone and often separate pieces, unsuitable for cutting or in general handicrafts, are estimated at thousands of rubles. A true amateur collector will not regret anything not to miss any unicum. Opponents of mineralogist collectors are the collections made for various educational institutions. Thus, no stone disappears; if the gem is not suitable for cutting, it enters the collection as a piece, there are also fragments of ornamental stones, such as eagles, lapis-lazuli and jasper. " To a large extent, this statement has retained its meaning to this day.
Collections of mineralogical museums continue to be enriched with beautiful exhibits — decorative and rare minerals and rocks, as well as products from them. For example, the collection was collected for 40 years by the Minerals Bureau of the A. E. Fersman Mineralogical Museum of the USSR Academy of Sciences, organized by V. I. Kryzhanovsky. New museums are being created, one of which is a geopark in Moscow. In addition to world-famous museums such as the Diamond Fund of Russia, the Leningrad Mining Institute, the Moscow State University, the Ural Polytechnic Institute, and many others, there are large mineralogical museums attached to branches and institutes in Russia (in the city of Leningrad). Apatite at the Kola Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in Academgorodok at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences), academies of sciences, departmental research institutes, territorial and geological associations, expeditions and consignments, as well as factories carrying out development work at large complex deposits, where stone masonry is a by-product component.
In Soviet times, exhibitions of gems and products "The Amazing in Stone" were held in Moscow. The exhibition presented up to 150 collections, usually made of beautiful stones. The exhibitions are still a great success, attract attention to gems, contribute to the deepening of knowledge in the field of mineralogy, and serve as an important factor in the revival of stone culture. The "World of Stone" exhibition is held in Voronezh. Currently, personal collections of stone lovers include a large number of self-precious minerals and decorative samples of great scientific, aesthetic and commercial value. Some samples are unique and can be classified as national values. It is necessary to guarantee their preservation, to organize an exhibition of the best collections and individual minerals to enhance the culture of stone in the country, to create a single catalog of the most common collections, as is done for works of art that are under the protection of the state.