Amber chandelier of the Stalin era was recreated in Kaliningrad

At the Kaliningrad Amber Plant, the chandelier was restored, which was made almost 70 years ago for the leadership of the USSR. The chandelier is unique not only by its design, but also by the almost detective story associated with it.

The plant in Kaliningrad has been and remains the world’s largest industrial enterprise for the production of amber. In the mid-50s, local artists received a large and very important order from Moscow. They had to make a whole set, decorated with amber, for the interior of the office of an official from the senior leadership of the USSR. The central element of the headset was to become a 22-kilogram amber chandelier, unique in beauty and complexity, made in the then Stalinist Empire style.

Galina Spivak, the caretaker of the museum of the Kaliningrad Amber Factory, says: “In those years, following the principles of the Stalinist empire, they strived for monumentality in everything, from architecture to jewelry. Each item was richly decorated and gracefully decorated. And so it went on until 1955. ”

But while the work was going on, the power in the Soviet Union changed, and with it the general requirements for architecture and design. The grace and monumentality of the Stalin era gave way to the typical functionality recommended by a separate resolution of the CPSU Central Committee. About the set, made by that time only partially - watches, boxes, amber panels and souvenirs - they forgot and he remained lying, unclaimed, somewhere in the warehouses of the enterprise. Many years later, in 1979, some of the items made then were given to the newly opened Regional Amber Museum. Among them are the Abundance vase, the Epoch watch, as well as the expertly executed model of the atomic icebreaker Lenin. It is not clear how, but the huge chandelier went unnoticed again. We discovered it recently and quite by accident.

In January 2014, the amber factory was transformed into an open joint-stock company, and 100% of the shares were transferred to the management of the state corporation Rostekhnologii. In this regard, a large-scale audit was carried out at the enterprise, affecting all warehouses and storerooms. During the audit, a chandelier was found. The careless storage conditions for so many years could not but affect its appearance.

The state in which the amber chandelier was located did not cause anything but horror. Some of the amber elements crumbled, one had only to pick them up, some were simply absent. The metal components were covered with rust, partially deteriorated. But the management of the plant decided to restore this unique example of stone-cutting art of the last century.

For the restoration of the chandelier, about 6 kilograms of amber of the highest quality was required. He went to replace the decayed and missing parts, and the preserved original elements were coated with a special varnish that protects amber from external factors. Stonecutters had to restore the technology of cutting and processing stone half a century ago, unfortunately, already lost.

Restoration work lasted about five months. During this time, some large businessmen showed commercial interest in the chandelier, but the plant management refused to sell it. It is difficult to say what the transaction amount could be if an exact copy of the chandelier costs several million rubles.