What does “нефрит” mean in Russian?

Нефрит is the Russian word for nephrite jade, and the name carries an unexpected etymology: it comes from Greek nephros, “kidney.” Medieval Europeans believed the stone could cure kidney disease when pressed against the body, and that belief is permanently baked into what Russians call the mineral today. Siberia — especially Buryatia — sits on some of the world’s richest nephrite deposits, making the word far from exotic in a Russian news context.

In the clip, a Buryatia man illegally mined a 412-kilogram block of нефрит in 2019, buried it in the forest, and waited six years for the right moment to sell it. The moment never came cleanly: the FSB detained him on the spot as he was loading it onto a truck, and he now faces criminal charges — up to two years in prison under the article on illegal nephrite trafficking (незаконный оборот нефрита). The same Greek root nephros gives Russian нефрология (nephrology, the study of kidneys) and нефрит in its second, medical sense — kidney inflammation — so learners who know the medical term will find the mineral name clicks instantly.