Kaliningrad Amber Combine
Kaliningrad Amber Combine ( Russian Калининградский янтарный комбинат ) or Kaliningrad Amber Combine Jantarny is the common name for the state-owned company founded after the Second World War for amber mining and processing in the Kaliningrad Oblast and its legal successor.
Company form and production facilities
The Kaliningrad Amber Combine continues to a large extent the tradition of amber mining and amber processing of the State Amber Manufactory in Königsberg , which went down towards the end of the Second World War , but is not the legal successor of the old manufacture.
With the incorporation of the northern part of East Prussia into the former Soviet Union after the end of the Second World War, means of production and thus also the premises, the buildings and the machine park of the old amber factory were nationalized. The Gdańsk operations had fallen to Poland. However, the combine was only founded in 1947 as Combine No. 9 . The open pit mine was incorporated into the Leningrad state concern Russkie Samotsvety . Considerations of rebuilding the factory at the old location (in Königsberg / Kaliningrad) were rejected. Instead, it was decided to go to Jantarny (Palmnicken). At first there were manufacturing plants in Jantarny and Primorye (formerly Groß-Kuhren). In 1953 the production of amber articles in Primorye was stopped and concentrated on Jantarny.
In 1993 an attempt was made to partially privatize it, but it failed. First, in the course of privatization, the combine was liquidated and all of its property was transferred to the newly created company Russky Yantar ("Russian Amber"). In 1996 a court order was issued that reversed the privatization. This decision, in turn, was challenged by private investors. One of the consequences of this procedure was the temporary parallel formal existence of two companies. One of them was Amber Combine No. 9 , revived by court ruling , the other Russky Yantar . The unclear legal situation and the resulting organizational chaos put the amber industry in difficult waters and led to the company's insolvency in 2003.
The legally and organizationally tricky situation of the amber industry changed in 2004. In the course of a fundamental reorganization caused by the bankruptcy, in the course of which unproductive parts of the company were closed and the workforce was reduced from 1,350 to 800 employees, the combine was split into two Company: one that mines amber and another that processes amber. Both companies were given the legal form of the "open stock corporation". The company responsible for the mining Russky Yantar was endowed with a share capital of approx. 38 million rubles and has been registered since June 30, 2006, the company responsible for the amber processing was capitalized with around 235 million rubles and has been operating since September 15. 2004 (day of registration) as Yantarny Yuvelirprom (as much as "Amber processing Jantarny"). The auction, in which company shares were offered for sale, did not go well. The lack of financial resources required for the restructuring of the companies were subsequently raised in the form of private capital and government grants. This organizational structure has remained essentially unchanged since then. Since a reorganization of the combine in 2014, the Russian state corporation RosTech has been the sole shareholder.
Mining amber production
The amber-containing blue earth is mined in open-cast mining. For this purpose, the top layer over the blue earth, which is more than fifty meters thick in places, is first removed. The last meters of the surface layer above the blue earth usually already contain considerable amounts of amber. However, mining only began when the blue earth was reached, which is transformed into a cloudy mass of sludge under high water pressure and conducted via a system of pipes to sieves in which the amber, pre-sorted according to the mesh size of the sieves, remains hanging and sorted out becomes. The washing water and sludge are discharged into the Baltic Sea via a pipeline. Amber residues contained therein are fished off with nets by the residents of the area.
The main features of this process, from mining amber in open-cast mining to selecting and cleaning the pieces, have not changed since the beginning of amber mining in open-cast mining at the beginning of the 20th century, apart from the fact that today almost all operations are mechanized.
The beginnings
After the end of the Second World War, the open pit mine near Jantarny (formerly Palmnicken), where the State Amber Manufactory Königsberg mined amber until 1945, was under water. Most of the equipment used to mine amber from the early years of the 19th century was still partially available, but mostly in great need of repair. Amber mining and processing was viewed in the responsible ministry and in the Kremlin as a promising branch of the economy in the Kaliningrad Oblast, so that despite the extremely difficult framework conditions in the post-war years, funds were made available for the drainage of the mine and the restoration of the machinery, as well as amber mining in July 1948 could finally be resumed. In this first trunk year, around 115 tons of amber were mined; in the 1950s the annual output was between 135 and 302 tons. In the first few years mainly interned prisoners of war and prisoners were employed in the dismantling.
Even before the establishment of the combine, amber articles were made from the small remaining stocks of raw amber from the former state-owned amber factory in small local businesses. Mostly these were cufflinks, brooches, bracelets, tie pins and souvenirs. A little later, these and similar items were mostly produced in large series in the Jantarny factory. The brooch with the designation “Spider”, of which more than a million copies were made over the course of several decades, became almost legendary. For the production of amber articles, unsuitable amber because of its size or nature, was either processed into pressed amber or broken down into its chemical components in the combine smelting plant: amber oil , succinic acid and rosin (for lacquer production).
The combine from 1960 to 1990
An increasingly dilapidated machine park, severe slopes in the open pit near Jantarny and sticking to the production of amber articles that did not always meet the tastes of potential customers led the company into a serious crisis at the end of the 1950s. During this time, there were several, initially unsuccessful attempts at reorganization. As a result of the slope falls in the Primorskoye opencast mine, amber extraction was completely reorganized technically. The opening of a new opencast mine was aimed for in 1963; However, the opencast mine was not put into operation until 1976 and then did not bring the expected yields, so that the old mine was also further exploited. The open-cast mine, which was also set up in 1978 on the coast between Sinjawino and Jantarny, turned out to be very productive and could be operated at significantly lower cost. During this time between 500 and 800 tons of amber were mined annually. In 1990 it was 808 tons. At the time, the Amber Combine employed more than 2000 people, making the Combine one of the largest commercial enterprises in Kaliningrad Oblast and still is today. At times the combine provided up to 10% of the economic output of the entire Kaliningrad region.
Raw amber as well as semi-finished and finished products were exported to a not inconsiderable extent. Most of the customers came from the Soviet republics. But there was also brisk demand from Arab countries (prayer chains) and from Western and Central Europe and North America. The increasing presence of the amber combine and its products at international trade fairs and exhibitions may have contributed to this. This increasing internationalization of the appearance and the trade also had a positive influence on the design of the amber articles, which now more corresponded to the respective fashion and contemporary taste.
Development from 1990
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and its formal dissolution in 1991, the amber industry, like many other branches of the economy, fell into a serious crisis. In particular, the loss of traditional sales markets in various of the former Soviet republics made itself felt.
In the early 1990s, production (amber mining and amber articles) fell dramatically. The number of employees fell significantly, wages were reduced and, moreover, sometimes not paid for months. The warehouses were full of amber and amber items for which no customers could be found. At the end of the 1990s, around 2,000 tons of raw amber were stored. The amber factory became unprofitable and in some areas (including lacquer manufacture) production was stopped.
In 1992 the monopoly of the combine on amber mining also fell. As a result, more than 300 private individuals were granted collective licenses. In addition, the illegal amber mining, which has been a problem to this day (2014), assumed considerable proportions. In the mid-1990s, more than 200 mostly very small companies were registered in the Kaliningrad Oblast that were involved in the mining and processing of amber. Their products mostly corresponded more to the tastes of domestic and foreign customers than those of the combine. As a result, the amber combine practically dwindled in the 1990s to the role of a supplier of raw amber, which was mainly exported to Lithuania and Latvia.
The aforementioned failed privatization, which resulted in further losses in income and assets for the combine, also fell into this phase.
In 1998 a government program was launched to end the crisis in the amber industry. It was at this time that the decision was made to reconstruct the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, which was lost in the Second World War . The combine supplied most of the considerable amount of high-quality amber required for this. But even this program did not turn things around. Rather, the aforementioned bankruptcy occurred in 2003.
At the end of 2006, the Kaliningrad Oblast government approved a 2011 program to develop the amber industry in the oblast. During these years around 400 different amber articles were produced in parallel, up to 150 articles are added to the production program or their appearance revised annually. In 2010 the amber production was only 341 tons. In the period that followed, production remained at this historically low level (2013 - approx. 300 tons; 2014 - approx. 250 tons; 2015 - approx. 313 tons); however, most of the raw amber remained in the region for further processing.
The difficulties in operating the company profitably in the long term continue to this day (end of 2016). In the middle of 2013 the company group “Rust Technologies” was commissioned to work out a plan for the recovery of the amber combine, which was in a permanent crisis. Early 2014 has begun to deposit Sinyavino to tap directly on the beach again for one year. Around 100 tons of amber are to be extracted there within this one year.
In the Kaliningrad Amber Museum , part of the permanent exhibition is dedicated to the Kaliningrad Amber Combine.
literature
- Zoja Kostyashova: The History of the Kaliningrad Amber Factory, 1947 - 2007 , Kaliningrad 2007. (English transcription of the author's name; personal identity with Zoja Kostiaszowa in German transcription).
- Zoja Kostiaszowa: The post-war history of the combine for mining and processing of amber in Jantarnyi / Palmnicken . In: Amber - Tears of the Gods. Pp. 237-248, Bochum 1996.
- Rainer Slotta, Michael Ganzelewski: Today's amber extraction and processing in Jantarnyi . In: Amber - Tears of the Gods. Pp. 249-268, Bochum 1996.
- Ernst Giesebrecht: The extraction of the amber residues from the processing of the Russian amber combine Jantarnyi. In: Amber - Tears of the Gods. Pp. 273-276, Bochum 1996.
Web links
- Website of the combine (Russian) with pictures of the current amber mining
- Portrait of the combine on the Kaliningrad Amber Museum website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Registration Russky Yantar ( Memento of 8 August 2014 Internet Archive )
- ↑ Registration Yuvelirprom ( Memento from August 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Russia News January 2014
- ↑ Zoja Kostyashova: The crisis of the amber industry in the Kaliningrad District of the Russian Federation. In: Amber - Views - Opinions. Pp. 238-240, Warsaw - Danzig 1999.
- ↑ ZV Kostyashova: Kaliningrad Amber Factory. In: Kaliningrad Amber Museum. Pp. 81–90, Kaliningrad 2008.
- ↑ Königsberger Express 11/2011.
- ↑ Press article (Russian)
- ↑ Königsberger Express 4/2015
- ↑ Kaliningrad Weekly Gazette
- ↑ Königsberger Express 12/2013
- ↑ Königsberger Express edition 5/2014