By Nikolay Dyuzhev
The collection embraces over 200 exhibits, including amber watches, candlesticks, caskets, interior decorations, scientific reconstructions of 18th century items and exclusive natural compositions. The exhibits featuring this natural stone are being showcased at the Kaliningrad Museum of Single Mineral — unique throughout Russia. Unsurprisingly, the modern Kaliningrad peninsula is known for having the largest global deposit of amber: known beautifully as ‘tears of the sea’ or ‘fragments of the sun’.
The Kaliningrad Region was home to the only Russian factory industrially mining and processing this natural mineral. According to the General Director of Gomel’s Palace and Park Ensemble, Oleg Ryzhkov, the Amber Museum opened in 1979 inside a former 19th century fortress. It was a branch of the Kaliningrad Art Museum and, eight years ago, gained the status of an independent establishment. It boasts over 11,000 exhibits.
The exhibition has been organised as part of an agreement on bilateral co-operation between the largest museum of Gomel (which is the CIS’ cultural capital) and the museum of Russia’s western cultural centre of Kaliningrad.
