Nothing can match the beauty of Australian opals, particularly when a gorgeous Ukrainian model is walking through Moscow's Red Square in a A$500,000 dress studded with opals. That was the scene during Australia Week in Moscow, the largest Australian trade promotion ever held in Russia, when South Australian gemstone company Majestic Opals paraded the lavishly encrusted opal industry gown to admiring onlookers.

Owned and operated by the Provatidis family, Majestic Opals covers the entire opal exporting process, from mining to cutting, polishing, setting and sale. Australia Week in Moscow 2005 gave the company an encouraging first glimpse of the boom-town conditions in a city that boast 33 billionaires and a swelling coterie of people with serious disposable incomes.

"Russia is a phenomenal country and the interest we attracted during Australia Week in Moscow encouraged us to believe that Australian opals have a strong future here," said Sophia Provatidis.

Majestic Opals was the visual hit of Australia Week in Moscow 2005, with its sparkling stones attracting star-eyed admiration and the dress garnering a traffic-stopping response in Red Square. Photographs of a model wearing the industry-owned opal dress in Red Square helped Majestic Opals gain national media exposure, including a page 3 story in Australia's largest-selling newspaper (Daily Telegraph) and television coverage in Russia.