The paper’s aim was to present the actual level of Baltic amber (succinite) extraction and the reasons for the enormous fluctuations in this regard over the decades which led to the fall of the “realist socialist” economic system in all the countries with raw amber deposits or outcrops.
A Time of Plenty
In the early 1980s, when amber extraction grew to volumes many times greater than ever before, all the succinite deposits and its more important outcrops (post-glacial ones and those in beach mines in the Vistula River Delta) were located
in a zone dependent on the Soviet Union. The enormous resources of the Eocene Gdansk Delta were already (albeit to a varying degree) geologically researched and estimated at 1,000,000 tonnes in the USSR’s Kaliningrad Oblast’, with 643,000 tonnes in Poland. The small but significant – with almost 7,000 tonnes – deposit in Poland’s Lublin Region was prospected and found to be shallow enough for strip mining.
The resources in the Saxon deposit near Bitterfeld in East Germany were yet to be estimated, but its operation was in full swing, reaching an output of 50 tonnes per year. The Ukrainian deposits in the Volyhn Region were being prepared for extraction, as they were very suitable for operation both technically and cost-wise.
The loosening of police discipline in the entire Soviet zone facilitated illegal extraction in Sambia, Ukraine and in Poland. Therefore, everything seemed to point to a permanent surplus of raw amber supply over the demand from the still-budding amber processing industry.
In terms of figures the output in the 1980s was as follows:
| Year |
Legal extraction
|
Illegal extraction & theft |
Collected |
Total |
| KAF |
GDR |
Poland |
Total |
Russia |
Ukraine |
Poland |
| 1981 |
715 |
35 |
15 |
765 |
85 |
2 |
55 |
3 |
910 |
| 1982 |
723 |
39 |
5 |
767 |
100 |
3 |
25 |
3 |
897 |
| 1983 |
638 |
49 |
3 |
690 |
100 |
4 |
25 |
3 |
822 |
| 1984 |
656 |
35 |
2 |
692 |
100 |
5 |
25 |
3 |
825 |
| 1985 |
595 |
36 |
15 |
646 |
100 |
7 |
25 |
3 |
781 |
| 1986 |
698 |
30 |
15 |
643 |
100 |
9 |
25 |
3 |
780 |
| 1987 |
581 |
30 |
15 |
626 |
100 |
12 |
25 |
3 |
766 |
| 1988 |
732 |
35 |
15 |
782 |
120 |
15 |
25 |
3 |
945 |
| 1989 |
820 |
36 |
15 |
871 |
140 |
17 |
25 |
3 |
1056 |
| 1990 |
809 |
12 |
-- |
821 |
150 |
20 |
20 |
3 |
1014 |
| Decade |
6967 |
337 |
100 |
7404 |
1095 |
94 |
275 |
30 |
8898 |
Abbreviations: KAF = Kaliningrad Amber Factory in Yantarny, GDR = German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
It became apparent, however, that there was no solid or permanent economic basis for the output results, which following the shift to a market economy led to perturbations that persist to this day.
The bankruptcies of the 1990s
The German mine in
Goitsche near Bitterfeld was closed immediately after East Germany was incorporated into the Federal Republic because of the unprofitability of the operation of the yet-inexhausted deposit. The Russians failed to take a firm stance on the permanently unprofitable
Primorskaya Mine in Yantarny whose output was a far cry from the planned 1,100 tonnes of amber per annum. This mine has been languishing for 30 years at the expense of a true amber El Dorado, the
Plazhovaya Mine, opened in 1972 at the personal risk of Vasyl Ryzhkov, director of the Kaliningrad Amber Factory, in spite of the official forecasts from geologists and the recommendations of the central government. It was from Plazhovaya Mine that 83% of the Factory’s entire output came from 1972 to 2003. Unfortunately, it got exhausted already in 2001, while its last 2 years were about the rinsing and screening of the “blue earth” which had earlier been removed from the amber-bearing layer.
According to the source study by Zoya Kostiashova in the recently published (late 2007), magnificent book (in Russian and English) THE HISTORY OF THE KALININGRAD AMBER FACTORY 13,644.5 tonnes of amber from Plazhovaya Mine found its way into the Factory’s storehouses, and a significant (and most likely the highest-quality) share was stolen. This is made apparent by the dozens of very large nuggets weighing over 1 kg which found their way to European and Asian collections during the time of Plazhovaya’s operation, even though the Factory failed to record such specimens in its storehouses at the time. Throughout history no other source of raw amber can boast output results on a par with Plazhovaya: neither the efficient dredging of the Curonian Lagoon by the Stantien & Becker company, nor the Anna deep mine which was once operated right beside the later Plazhovaya, nor the inter-bellum Staatliche Bernstein Manufaktur – Königsberg strip mine.
In the 1990s, when economic chaos prevailed in Russia, even such good results from a single mine were unable to save the whole company – with a second unprofitable mine and an inept processing plant – from ongoing losses and successive bankruptcies which led to the forming of an incessant series of economic operators. As many as 5 such enterprises were established over the course of the decade: state-owned enterprise, the Russkiy Yantar limited liability company, joint-stock company, mandatory state receivership to again become a state-owned enterprise with separate daughter companies.
The fluctuations in the output of the Factory’s strip mines in individual years of the 1990s were caused by a disregard for economic principles rather than by a lack of conveniently located deposits. Vast stretches of Sambia were torn up by
primitive “poor-man’s shafts”, where former Kolhoz workers were able to make a profit from digging as shallow as 2-3 metres deep to find beautiful amber nuggets using the simplest of tools. The industrial-scale operation of these areas would yield spectacular results, but the attachment to monopoly won the day in Yantarny.
A similar doctrine guided the policy of the government of independent Ukraine, which granted exclusive rights to its state-owned Ukrburshtyn enterprise in Rivne for the extraction of deposits in the Volyhn Region. The result was similar: inefficiency and output theft, which led to the closing of the strip mines every few years due to financial losses. The vast mine in
Dubrovitsa was closed, while in Klesiv the operation was trimmed down to only the
Pugach deposit.
The confusion of free-market principles with post-Soviet restrictions led in the 1990s to fluctuations in the legal extraction of amber and a boom in illegal exploitation; the figures were as follows:
Amber extraction and collecting from 1991 to 2000 (in tonnes)
| Year |
Legal extraction |
Illegal extraction & theft |
Collected |
Total |
| KAF |
Ukrb. |
Poland |
Total |
Russia |
Ukraine |
Poland |
| 1991 |
784 |
-- |
-- |
784 |
150 |
20 |
15 |
3 |
972 |
| 1992 |
585 |
-- |
-- |
585 |
150 |
25 |
15 |
3 |
778 |
| 1993 |
392 |
1 |
-- |
393 |
120 |
30 |
10 |
3 |
556 |
| 1994 |
760 |
2 |
-- |
762 |
150 |
30 |
10 |
3 |
955 |
| 1995 |
744 |
1 |
-- |
745 |
150 |
35 |
10 |
3 |
943 |
| 1996 |
800 |
2 |
-- |
802 |
150 |
35 |
10 |
3 |
1000 |
| 1997 |
318 |
3 |
1 |
322 |
100 |
35 |
9 |
3 |
469 |
| 1998 |
442 |
2 |
1 |
445 |
100 |
35 |
9 |
3 |
592 |
| 1999 |
350 |
1 |
1 |
352 |
100 |
35 |
9 |
3 |
499 |
| 2000 |
442 |
1 |
1 |
444 |
100 |
35 |
9 |
3 |
591 |
| Decade |
5617 |
13 |
4 |
5634 |
1270 |
315 |
106 |
30 |
7355 |
Abbreviations: Ukrb. = Ukrburshtyn State Enterprise in Rivne
The collapse of extraction at the turn of the 21st century
The main reason for the acute shortage in supply for amber processing factories, whose number and potential grew exponentially following the economic transformations (especially in Poland, Lithuania and the Russian Federation’s Kaliningrad Oblast’), was of course the conservatism of the Russian and Ukrainian governments, which chose to retain state monopolies on the operation of their ample deposits. These monopolies have led to restrictions in the use of the resources, mismanagement, intervention in international trade through the obligation to have every transaction in the Russian Federation licensed painstakingly by the central government and the full ban on the export of raw amber from the Ukraine. This is the reason why illegal exploitation and the smuggling of the output from these sources are still going strong, while the regular operation of the deposits has dropped to volumes from 150 years ago. The last year covered by the analysis, i.e. 2006, is probably rock-bottom in terms of this adverse trend:
Amber extraction and collecting from 2001 to 2006 (in tonnes)
| Year |
Legal extraction |
Illegal extraction & theft |
Collected |
Total |
| KAF |
Ukrb. |
Poland |
Total |
Russia |
Ukraine |
Poland |
| 2001 |
276 |
2 |
-- |
278 |
70 |
40 |
18 |
3 |
409 |
| 2002 |
208 |
4 |
-- |
212 |
40 |
40 |
12 |
3 |
307 |
| 2003 |
188 |
2 |
-- |
190 |
35 |
40 |
10 |
3 |
278 |
| 2004 |
262 |
3 |
-- |
265 |
25 |
400 |
12 |
3 |
345 |
| 2005 |
202 |
2 |
-- |
204 |
20 |
40 |
10 |
3 |
277 |
| 2006 |
132 |
3 |
-- |
135 |
18 |
40 |
8 |
3 |
204 |
| Decade |
1268 |
16 |
0 |
1284 |
208 |
240 |
70 |
18 |
1820 |
Let us hope that economic factors will finally prevail over the awful doctrine and that both Russia and the Ukraine will start to manage their raw amber resources in a way that is consistent with current global standards.
Since mid-2007 the home page of the Kaliningrad Amber Factory web-site bears the legend: The Amber Factory is Waking from its Coma. Let us hope that it’s true, although
the current view of the work in Primorskaya Mine still shows the modest scope of the extraction area and its humble technical means.
There has been news of changes in the legislation in the Ukraine: private companies have been allowed to operate amber deposits and they have already begun operations.
Last but not least, a few words about what’s going on in terms of extraction in Poland, the leader in both the amber working business and international sales of amber products. Within the city of Gdansk and several municipalities of the Zulawy Lowland Region, over a dozen amber prospecting licenses have led to
surveying operations. We cannot yet speak of any output results, as this is by nature an initial stage, which consists of prospecting, rather than deposit extraction. This is, however, a harbinger of better times.
We can arrive at a true harvest when we thoroughly prospect the primary deposits at the base of the Hel Peninsula and near Lubartowska Hill and have efficient capitalist enterprises effectively use this prospecting activity to build and operate modern Polish mines.
*** *** ***
The figures on the illegal exploitation and smuggling, presented in the tables above, are estimates as a matter of course. Since 1995, however, I have verified them with the Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) in Cracow and this is the form in which they are presented in the annual reports submitted to the government and other public authorities.
The figures on the Russian, German and Ukrainian factories come from official releases made by these companies.
