Ruthenium is not exactly a household word. It was named after Russia by its discoverers who found it during refining platinum slated to be minted into Rubles. To this day it plays an important role in jewelry where it's used to strengthen platinum. A few master jewelers have made one-off pure Ru rings but the process is immensely difficult because of its very high melting point, its exceptional hardness and the fact that when working with it the damn thing will break if you so much as look at it wrong!

Jewel. That's what comes to mind when you see this beautiful little crystal of pure ruthenium. Perfectly smooth facets are guided by the natural 'desire' of the Ru atoms to interlink in their favorite manner only to be abruptly stopped by an unwelcome atom of something else at which point the remaining ruthenium dutifully continue building a lattice in another direction. And in this manner those facets give way to capricious angles that intertwine in surreal patterns for our delight.