NORTHERN EUROPE'S Amber Rush

SOARING PRICES AMIDST A MINING BOOM

- STEVE VOYNICK

In northern Europe, amber is known as “sunstone” and “solar stone” for its golden, sun-like glow. It is also known as “Baltic gold” for its huge economic impact. The latter term is especially fitting, since northern Europe, notably the Baltic Sea coast at Kaliningrad, Russia, and adjoining Poland and Lithuania, has produced most of the world’s amber.

Today, tens of thousands of people work in the regional amber industry. Amber is the area’s iconic souvenir, and museums that showcase amber are significant tourist attractions. With the recent emergence of Ukraine as a major source of amber, northern Europe’s amber output is soaring. Average grades of amber now sell for several hundred dollars per pound, and regional production is estimated at 1,000 tons per year—a historic high.

But there are two sides to amber mining in northern Europe. With few alternative employment opportunities and lured by record amber prices, some 20,000 Kaliningrad Russians and Ukrainians now work as independent amber miners. And virtually all are unlicensed and unregulated. While amber mining provides a living for thousands and has boosted production to record levels, it has also brought environmental devastation, economic chaos, corruption, violence, protection racketeering, black-marketeering, and rampant smuggling.

The complex origin of northern Europe’s amber rush is rooted in the geology, occurrence, and history of amber and the centuries-old reverence for amber. In recent years, regional economics and politics are among the drivers of the amber rush.