Nothing stands still. Everything develops, everything evolves. The stone market is no exception. It's impossible to stop its development. But the development of specific areas in specific locations can be facilitated. Or hindered. Over time, new deposits are developed, and new factories are opened. With their emergence, Thailand's role as a mining and processing center is gradually diminishing. However, other factors are emerging that can strengthen this role and maintain the country's status as a market leader.

In this regard, the emergence of world-renowned gemologists and cutters in Thailand, such as Viktor Tuzlukov, is noteworthy. Beginning his career as an amateur cutter, Viktor completed the GG course at the GIA and became a professional cutter, already possessing an understanding of the gemological characteristics of stones and existing grading methods. Around the same time (2006-2010), he began actively participating in international cutting competitions held by non-professional associations and cutters' guilds. In 2012, he organized such a competition in Russia, attracting cutting enthusiasts from five countries. Having won victories in England, the USA (with an absolute score of 100.00 out of 100 in the Grandmaster category), and the unofficial world championship in Australia (with a new record of 299.17 out of 300), he had a keen understanding of precision cutting and how far removed it is from the real gem market.

This isolation is unsurprising, as technical competitions were held only among amateurs. Professionals were limited to creative competitions with highly subjective assessments of beauty, originality, and design complexity by a few authoritative judges—usually dealers, gemologists, jewelers, exhibition managers, and, less commonly, journalists. Of these, perhaps only gemologists could evaluate the precision of a cut... if they had the appropriate tools. But if a gemologist isn't a gem cutter, if they don't understand the capabilities of modern cutting equipment, if they haven't seen what perfectly cut stones CAN look like, how can they evaluate the quality of that cut? This quality has already become the norm in competitions today and could become the benchmark for commercial cutting tomorrow. Clearly, the first step here must be taken by a gem cutter, or more precisely, a gem cutter-gemologist, capable not only of creating such tools but also of explaining and justifying them in a language understandable to specialists.

That's why, in 2016, Viktor, drawing on his experience participating in, judging, and organizing technical competitions, summarized the judging criteria previously developed by gem cutters' guilds and adapted them to market conditions. This resulted in the "Colored Gemstones Cut Grading System," which uses a 100-point quality scale with a computer-calculated score expressed to four decimal places. It addressed and corrected the shortcomings of existing systems, which suffered from subjectivity and uncertainty, as a single grading level covered a very broad range of quality. But the next step was to implement this system. In 2017, the GIT, with the support of the Government of Thailand, organized an international competition for professional gem cutters, where the new system was used for judging. 2018 strengthened this tradition, and a concept is currently being developed for holding a regular World Cup in stone cutting in Bangkok – with the identification of winners, the compilation of an official ranking of the world's best cutters, and the issuance of qualification certificates.

It's important to note that all of this activity reflects and reinforces market development trends. In addition to Viktor and independently of him, other Russian, Ukrainian, and Thai cutters operating in Thailand have begun to use cutting quality as a competitive advantage. And the entire aforementioned series of activities—precision cutting training, certification of craftsmen, organizing global competitions, and maintaining rankings of leading cutters—is designed to coordinate this development and strengthen Thailand's position as a leading center not only for trade but also for gemstone processing.

Judging the first international diamond cutting competition at the Institute of Gemstones, Bangkok

The set of awards received by Victor at the international competition in Australia

"Heart and Essence" from the WORLD HERITAGE collection. Scapolite, 199.9 carats.
A precision cut sample by Viktor Tuzlukov.
Photo: Arjuna Irsutti

The first Thai cutters who trained with Victor

An international group of students (representatives from 6 countries) receive the basics of precision cutting from Victor at GIT in 2017.