Hobbies

Mineral collection

Sergei Mironov has devoted a large part of his life to geology, which is his passion since early childhood. He found his first specimen, a trilobite, when he was 9 years old. Later that specimen was given to the Museum ofSt. Petersburg State MiningUniversity. Through the years, Sergei Mironov, who has eighteen operational seasons in his geologist's career, has collected over fifteen hundred specimen. His favorite stone is agate.

Sergei Mironov did not quit his hobby when he went into politics. He is constantly adding to his collection by participating in scientific expeditions, and quite often he receives the minerals as gifts. However, Sergei Mironov believes that 'it's wrong when a person possesses a unique thing and he's the only one to admire it'. When Sergei Mironov received a malachite jewelry box with three large emerald crystals from the Urals, he presented it to the miningmuseumofLeningrad MiningInstitute named after Plekhanov, and when he got a 1700 carat faceted tea-colored topaz, he presented it to the geologists club in youth creativity center inSt. Petersburg.

During the years of his work at the Federation Council (2001-2011) Sergei Mironov kept a large mineral collection in his office, and thousands of visitors of his office had a chance to see it. Russian and foreign delegations, Russian celebrities, sportsmen and common citizen were among those visitors. When his career as the Chairman of the Federation Council was over, Sergei Mironov decided to present this unique collection to the State Geology Museum of Minerals named after Vernadsky. The visitors of the official website can still see this collection when looking at the panoramic view of Sergei Mironov's former office. You can have a look at a small part of the collection here.

Books

Sergei Mironov has another hobby, and this hobby is books. It all started when Sergei Mironov was in the first grade at school, and he was allowed to go to school library and to the district library that was not far from his home. His mother worked in the military academy library, and there Sergei Mironov and his classmates learned how to 'heal' used books during their summer practice. When Sergei Mironov joined the army, the first thing he did was sign-up in the library. While serving his military term he used to read war memoirs and poetry classics Pushkin and Esenin.

Sergei Mironov recalls: "A book titled "Entertaining geology" written by professor Fersman played a very important role in my life. First, I went into 'rocks', then entered and graduated from Leningrad Mining Institute, and then became a geologist. When you work in a library with books your mind and will are trained very well. And it is because I'm accustomed to learn from the books I manage to continue education throughout my life. And the same skill helps me now, when I work in politics with tons of documents. However, to tell you the truth, the only luxury I can indulge myself in, once in a while, is being alone with my minerals and my books".

Sergei Mironov's favourite book is the novel 'Master and Margarita' by Mikhail Bulgakov. "I can say that I have experienced quite a shock when I first read this novel. I just could not believe that such a book could be written and published in soviet era, and its author was not prosecuted or executed. Ever since I have read it for the first time, 'Master and Margarita' remains my favourite book. This book touches something deep within my soul, and it reflects my ideas about life in general. And yet it is a lot more intense and vivid. That is why every time I read it I get something new out of it. It is as if the novel absorbs my life experience and presents me with rather unexpected answers for the questions that torment me, despite the fact that those questions have absolutely nothing to do with the book", - Sergei Mironov says.

A book by Sergei Mironov titled "The horizon" was published in November 2010. "In this book I tried to share my opinion and my thoughts on what every person could do in order for Russia to gain its greatness back and build a society based on harmony and justice", - Sergei Mironov said.

Fishing

Sergei Mironov prefers to spend his rare moments of leisure in the country enjoying fresh air and fishing. "I'm a passionate fisher, I love spending time with a rod, but, unfortunately I never have time for that", - he admits.

"The fish is good where the river is good, and there are lots of such rivers inRussia, all you have to do is choose. Once I visited Kolskiy peninsula on business, and I prolonged my journey for the weekend to fish for salmon. It was a good fishing, I caught seven salmons".

During his trips through the regions of Russia Sergei Mironov always tries to find out about fishing opportunities there. During one of his working visits to Baikal he could not leave "without casting the line for a bit. So I caught six pikes. Two of them were large, about5.5 poundseach, the rest were smaller. And it was such good luck that there was a video camera, so now I have it all recorded: how I cast the line, then the pike got the bait and I fought it and finally pulled it out".