How About a Shungite Room?

Given the notable healing power of one shungite sphere or pyramid, imagine being in an entire room made of shungite. Sound crazy? Well, shungite rooms actually do exist! They consist of chambers where the floors, walls, and ceiling are all constructed of shungite stone.

While brand new to the US and much of Europe, shungite rooms have been used in Russia for centuries. One of the early ones dates back to 1798 at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg. The Kremlin is reported to have one – although this is an unofficial report.

It makes sense that the appreciation of shungite as a means of restoring health would have first spread across Russia. Shungite’s only source is in Russia - but it goes deeper than that. Shungite rooms got a boost from the Soviets – and for that we must jump into the way-back machine and take a little trip back to the USSR.

Soviet Era Sanatoriums & Kurortology: Looking to Nature for Personal Restoration

A sanatorium (aka sanitarium) is part medical institution and part spa. Conceived in the 1920s, sanatoriums could be found all across the USSR from Sochi to Crimea to Uzbekistan. At their peak, millions of citizens visited sanatoriums each year, courtesy of a state-funded voucher system. These were a place to holiday – and it was completely on the state's tab.

Alongside the rise of sanatoriums, “kurortology” was born. Kurortology ("curative science") is the science of the biological effects of nature and the elements on human beings. Soviet kurortologists believed that reconnecting with nature, previously seen as hostile and inhospitable, was key to healing illness and social isolation. Institutes devoted to the study of kurortology were established to explore all manner of treatments ranging from mud baths to salt soaks to light therapy.

Not only did kurortology define the medical milieu in sanatoriums, but it also influenced their architecture. Soviet sanatoriums are among the most innovative buildings of their time. But despite their elaborate architecture, they were intended as a counterpoint to the decadence of Western culture, intended instead to strengthen the health of their patrons so they could return to work with renewed vigor.

Instead of golf, cocktail parties and rich food, your “holiday” consisted of a very strict and medically supervised schedule of crude-oil baths, radon-water douches, salt and paraffin wax treatments, magnetic sands, grape therapy, ultraviolet light exposure, and electrotherapy – and in some sanatoriums, spending time in shungite rooms!

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 dealt a death blow to the sanatorium industry. Today they are either boarded up and abandoned, or privately owned and converted into more modern wellness centers, spas, and hotels. Some have not changed at all, and for guests who lived through the Soviet era, these offer a stroll down memory lane.

For a fascinating visual tour of the “weird and wonderful wellness places of the USSR,” check out these great articles in the Calvert Journal and Russia Beyond.

As it turns out, Europe also had their quota of sanatoriums as shown in this New York Times piece. 

Shungite Rooms Offer Significant Benefits

Now that you’ve had your Soviet history lesson, let’s get back to present day. Although sanatoriums have mostly gone the way of the dodo, shungite rooms are gaining traction as the world seeks safe and natural remedies for 21^st Century woes. Shungite rooms have appeared in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Sochi, Nizhny Novgorodm and of course in Karelia, the heart of shungite country. In 2001, the famous Belyiekluchi Sanatorium in Petrozavodsk, Russia, built themselves a shungite room.

A similar one exists in the Moscow prison “Matrosskaya Tishina,” where guards enjoy after-shift sessions to chill and decompress.

The Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg reported very positive findings for their patients (mostly cardiac) who stayed in a special ward with shungite coating. Specifically, they experienced an increase in the efficiency and quality of their angina treatments for ischemic heart disease and hypertension. Patients stabilized more quickly, so hospitalizations were shorter and more cost effective. They also noted less bacterial contamination on the shungite ward. 

A small study was done somewhere in Russia (I'm not sure where or by whom) using Kirlian photography, revealing that people’s energy fields were much stronger after spending as little as 30 minutes in a shungite room.

Perhaps the most notable shungite room was constructed in 2006 in a Beslan School after the Beslan Massacre of 2004. A tragic terrorist attack resulted in the deaths of 334 people - including 186 children. A shungite room was established with a charitable purpose and for the psychological rehabilitation of injured children. The surviving children, parents and teachers experienced such emotional healing from their shungite chamber that they now refer to shungite as the “stone comforter.”

News of the healing power of shungite is spreading westward - and shungite rooms along with it. I’ve heard that rooms are appearing in Europe, and there is at least one in the US. The Angel Cooperative in Ridgefield, Connecticut, claims to have the only shungite room in the country.

How to Build Your Own Shungite Room

A shungite room can be constructed in a number of different ways. It can be built using solid shungite stone in the form of bricks and tiles, polished or unpolished – which as you can imagine is a massive endeavor, and very expensive. Building an entire room of shungite - including the floor and ceiling - can take several tons of shungite stone. This shungite room in Moscow consists of more than five tons of natural shungite!

A less expensive alternative is a special construction mix of shungite and magnesite that can be filled into any forms for production of artificial stone. You can read more about the specifics here.

Want to see a shungite room under construction? Here’s a video!

Sometimes I feel as though I live in a shungite room, since my living space is also my shungite storage space. I can only imagine what being completely surrounded in shungite might feel like! I am convinced this “stone comforter” is helping me maintain my energy and vitality, particularly during my longest and most pressing days.

I was drawn to this wondrous black stone the moment I first laid eyes upon it – how about you?