The world's first ever Tanzanite gems' museum has just been established in the Arusha Municipality.

Located on the third floor of the Blue Plaza building, next to the New Safari Hotel along the town's India Street, this special museum, which has been christened; 'The Tanzanite experience,' opens its doors to the public this week.

The museum runs under the Tanzanite Foundation a subsidiary of Tanzanite-One Mining Limited, the giant mining corporation with operations in Mererani area. A few months ago, the company shifted its administration offices from Arusha to Dar-es-salaam city.

Now Arusha is set to host the Tanzanite Museum, the first ever on the globe and (judging from the rarity of the blue gems) could well be the only one and the last one.

Tanzanite stones are only found, and mined, around the rocky Mererani hills, in the Simanjiro district of Manyara region.

The Tanzanite museum incorporates, among other things, an auditorium capable of seating 25 people and this is installed with latest Audio-visual technology like any other modern theatre.

Zane Swanepoel is the managing director for 'The Tanzanite Experience' she explains that the project is aimed at introducing 'Tanzanite' to the world.

"There are a number of tourists here who would be interested in finding out about the gems, their history, the whole mining process and final stages of production," Zane explained.

And the whole process will be shown step by step through a documentary film, or films. "People will get to also see the history of Tanzanite and how the precious gems that date back to the mid 1960s were discovered," said the Director.

Ali Juwa Watu is the person credited with the discovery of Tanzanite in 1965. The place where the first precious stone was found is at Block 'C' within the Tanzanite-One mining plot. In fact, the former company CEO Ian Harebottle had intended to establish the museum right on this spot.

Why the sudden change? "Because Mererani is rather far from town and we intend to have tourists and other visitors who come to town to get the chance of sampling the museum," said the director.

The Tanzanite experience is a cross between two major income generating ventures in Arusha region; Mining and tourism. The museum has also applied to be member of the Tanzania Association of Tour Operators.

It will also be the third museum in the municipality after the National Natural History Museum along Boma road and the Kaloleni based Arusha Declaration museum.

There have been speculations that the precious blue gems were about to be depleted, now with the formation of the museum people may conclude the blue gems were already extinct save for the memorabilia specimens in the new museum. What had Tanzanite-one officials to say about this?

"Ever since we started mining Tanzanite we have managed to venture at just 600 meters below. In South Africa gold is being extracted at an underground depth of about five kilometers below and still going," Lusekelo Mwakalukwa, the corporate governance manager for Tanzanite-One pointed out.

"It all boils down to applied technology," he added, "If you are well equipped then there is no limit to the amount of Tanzanite to be found but for the miners with shoddy gears then the end could indeed be nigh," he concluded.

The 'Tanzanite Experience' is going to display everything about the Mererani-mined gemstones including special shopping areas for Tanzanite, a coffee bar and training center for all people who want to learn a few things about the blue 'pieces of eight.'

A small scale miner examing a piece of tanzanite

Now for the entrance fees; according to Zane visitors for the museum will be expected to pay around US $10 at the door. Apparently part of the earnings will be invested towards local community development projects.

But the entrance fees, as far as Zane is concerned, have been placed in order to limit the number of people who will be getting into the museum at one time; "You see the center is also going to serve as Gemstone trading area a venture that requires maximum security," she explained.

Not to worry though, students are likely to be exempted from entrance fees on special arrangement with respective schools.

The 'Tanzanite Experience' was expected to be officially inaugurated on the 8th of August 2008 at about 8.00 pm in the evening by the Energy and Mineral resources Minister, William Ngeleja.

Coincidentally it was a kind of triple "8" launch, typical of the legendary 'pieces of eight' a term meaning 'Gold' as employed by the Victorian author, Robert Louis Stevenson in his all time classic 'Treasure Island.'

Mineral wise Tanzanite gems are said to be ten-times rarer than gold.