Report by Sergey Petrov Director of the Amber and Regional Resourses Institute

She crashed into my life on a huge GAZ-53 motor van, wearing a suede jacket and high white boots. Talking about Lena calmly and smoothly is impossible, and all my memories of the past resemble the short stories of her favourite writer Chmelevskaja.

… Then and there, during those turbulent Perestroika years, having completed my military service and having said farewell to the Penates of the Kaliningrad Technical Institute, with two children to care for, I was literally torn apart between the two options: following the scientific path or the commercial path. The good thing was that at that period young people were smart and there were enough of them to work with and to start new business. No one had money then; thus, the behaviour of young people wasn’t too intricate, they used to group together actively, to create and to experiment. 

Of course, she couldn’t stand the timeless perspective of turning an honest penny at the “privatized materials” and be constrained by reinforced-concrete limits of the Soviet “architectural standards”. Consequently, we joined our efforts and pursued our desire – working in an unknown field of amber. It was March of 1993. A rising youth organization “STUDCO” thanks to its relations with the “Lithuanian brothers” were introducing business innovations to Russia – opening tobacco shops, student canteens, discotheques. We quickly found a common ground with the management, since there was a significant experience of working at Kaliningrad discotheques. However, they have offered me a truly unusual task – to think of the ways of using a five-floor KTI hostel, located almost in the centre of the city. To this end I was for three months granted a position of superintendent of the hostel, where I fished out Lena, who was working as a household unit foreman. She was running along the smashed up floors of the building and giving directions regarding repair of the premises. At that time I had already managed to work as a supervisor at Integrated Amber Works (Rus. – “Jantarnyj kombinat”) and miraculously escape from a German businessman; therefore I proposed the management a new direction – amber processing. Due to this proposal I was sent to Moscow, to “April” league, as a delegate of Kaliningrad youth, where I absorbed the knowledge presented at the courses on capitalistic line of country development arranged by the Higher Party School. Having heard an earful of projects, Lena and I came up with enough of schemes – we opened ourselves a whole third floor and started developing an amber business. Later the poor management more than once regretted creating a troublesome division. One day the water from machine tools was pouring down on them, another day the alarm system burst into flames, but on the other hand, we kept receiving off-beat international faxes from the United States, France. The projects were marvellous! It is worth noting that people at those times were significantly more down-to-earth, there were less pressure and more action. During the term of service of Mayor Valentin Shipov we had a positive environment for development, he even used to gather the youth, to discuss problems with us, and, what is the most important, to provide really helpful advice. The youth used to pay him back with their support at elections.

We had 20 rooms. Lena occupied a separate room for the sales department, the first to the left from the metal door. The wallpaper colour was white, there were brown woollen panels at the centre, we had our own telephone and direct communication with all the “STUDKO” warehouses, including the liquor warehouses. Since we were on friendly terms with all the departments, they used to come and see us behind the metal door, where they could see the curious technological miracles, get a charge of positive energy from the amber maiden (no one knew that she was almost 10 years older than us, for that reason they treated her as a peer student). Most of the “STUDKO” enterprise employees were students, I needed to reconcile postgraduate studies with work and welfare activities at “STUDKO”.

Lena used to organize all the external work with shops (it is worth reminding that those times closely matched the lyrics of the song “you can’t go here, you can’t go there, but you can give it a try”, thus amber instantly entered the field of interest of criminals and the structures of the Internal Affairs Directorate). We were tormented by inspections, by duplicating reports; however we were among the first to receive the necessary “Amber processing license”, for a volume of 100 kilograms. And we left to pick up amber at the Integrated Amber Works, driving Lena’s car. There is a separate story about the car, I will tell you about her peculiar driving skills: first of all, she was given the white VW car as a present by her husband, thus, it was the item that brought her joy, but she used to confuse the left side with the right side and when breaking the rules, she used to slow down, open the window and apologize to the drivers for her mistakes. Then, fed up with the fact that other drivers rarely gave her way, Lena would fill her car with the girls from “STUDKO” and they would cruise around the city looking like a bunch of flowers. I couldn’t make myself sit in the car beside her since I was afraid, but we finally came up with an unusual way of communication – I would sit in the back and if we needed to turn right I would say that we have to drive in the direction of liver, if we needed to turn left – in the direction of pancreas. So this is how we used to drive. We had to drive often – we needed new sales outlets, only Lena could break through the spoilt purchasing agents of “MAYAK” and “RUBIN” shops. At first she used to strike the elderly women with her appearance and then I used to step forward and “finish solving” the issues. During the hungry Perestroika times there was only one amber shop at Mir Avenue and amber used to sell quite well, however settlement procedures were complex.

Lena’s first communication with the Integrated Amber Works has made an indelible impression on her. Firstly, she has met a fellow townsman – Anatoly Vasilyevich Tihomirov, a young and modest production engineer, who appeared to come from Rezekne town. Secondly, she has seen a heap of amber, which I used to tell her about. The case is that due to closure of the borders with Ukraine in the 80’s, because of absence of flax-seed oil, the varnish-and-paint manufacturing was shut down and 1500 thousand tons of unused raw amber material of different fractions were accumulated at that production unit.

Smugglers and foreigners were mostly interested in large-size and good quality amber, thus our joint research and development activities with the Integrated Amber Works were aimed at processing these reserves (it is a pity that they were afterwards exported for next to nothing due to cross-cancellation of debts). Despite the fact that the enterprise was under regime, we even had our own laboratory room at the territory of Kaliningrad Integrated Amber Works. Thus while I was communicating with storekeepers on business issues, Lena used to climb the huge 15-meters-high heap of amber and lie on top of it. Probably, by doing so, she used to get energy from the amber, the energy that she, who has lost her parents early and who lacked warm human touch of her friends and her sailor husband, needed badly. Lena was looking for friends and she was making new ones from unsympathetic ordinary people by turning them into cheerful and distinctive personalities.

There are no words to describe her determination when carrying out the international seminar under the “Leonardo” programme in 1995. Without knowing the language, she managed to arrange the event and to meet the international delegation of students and lecturers from Europe. There were 50 of them, different, talented and gifted people, who admired Baltic amber. We used to visit the open pit, make sketches, to work at the youth enterprise “STUDKO”, held a workshop. Those who had ever arranged similar events know how much effort it takes. Lena managed it, she infected everyone with amber fever, she was constantly showing things, gesticulating and the people who didn’t speak Russian used to understand her. Afterwards we arranged them a discotheque and the first Lena’s jewellery show. When the white bus was leaving for France Lena was crying, because it was only 7 years later when she could go abroad and study according to the similar programme. And meanwhile she had to communicate with the post-Soviet trade nomenclature, write reports to the license department and communicate with the Directorate for Combating Economic Crimes, which used to disturb our work quite often.

City days and festivals gave us more opportunities to promote amber culture. Back then, these were naturally joyful events, featuring display of creative work and simply human communication. We used to set up an amber stand near to the cathedral church, friends and children would come and Lena would give performances. She communicated with everybody – with groups of craftsmen, she used to exchange patterns, swap goods and in the evening we used to dance with the Baltic delegations at the outdoor areas ‘till we dropped. The opening of the World Ocean Museum has stuck in my memory, that year the yachts all over the world were for the first time allowed to attend the festival (this was possible during the Shipov’s term of service). We were visiting yachts and different companies for three days and nights. That was a unique environment of freedom and creativity. Lena’s sketches of that time with the planned exhibits for the World Ocean Museum still survived. Later one of Lena’s decision was to give our only experimental table, made of local shells and amber, and an amber barometer to the Museum.

(Separate acknowledgement to Svetlana Sivkova, who has rendered assistance in providing a place at the city cemetery). Lena loved this museum, apparently due to similarity of the moral virtues with its director Ms. Sivkova and of course due to her relation with the sea. After all, she was a sailor’s wife!

The first who raised the issue of using amber in the modelling field was Svetlana Gnatush, she discussed with Lena the possibility of using it in the shows. However, in 1998 the market experienced another crisis and we were forced to seek new survival strategies. Lena offered to take part in the Russian fairs. The first fair was the St. Petersburg fair “The World of Stone” (Rus. – “Mir kamnia”) held in 1996. Lena wrote letters to the fair organizer Nina Orlova, we packed our suitcases and left by train.

Upon communicating with customs officers we for the first time realized that the Kaliningrad Region is truly a prison camp, with fences and barbed wire. It took a long time before this shock left Lena’s conscience. Afterwards when communicating with public officers Lena used to go pale, lose her breath and her hands would tremble. Moreover, the fact that she could not step off the train in her native Latvian town Rezekne broke her heart. And when the St. Petersburg train changed its route never to pass Latvia, Lena understood that her ties with her home town were lost.

Fairs used to be exuberant. This was a triumph of interaction, of unity with the dwellers of St. Petersburg and especially with the intellectuals. People would not leave the Kaliningrad stand unattended for a second. No surprise – every customer was paid attention, all the possible amber combinations and jewellery models were tried on. Being familiar with the production technology, Lena took pleasure in telling about innovations in amber processing – “this is honey-boiled amber, here are my little triangles, and white amber shall suit you best” – you could hear through the crowd. Of course, everyone was bribed by that, it was the real promotion of Kaliningrad amber!

Not everything went smoothly, there were some troubles. We even got robbed. They were watching us from the very fair. Even the 35 kg did not matter. Just as soon as we put it on the ground at the passage of Lenin Avenue metro station, it was snatched out and carried away in the direction of residential area. The help of militia officers (in return of the timely offered 100 roubles) appeared to be efficient – the suitcase with a torn-off handle (indeed, the suitcase contained 35 kg of wire, silver and amber) was found at the fifth floor of the house located two blocks away. The poor devil was arrested when trying on huge amber bead necklace. A problem emerged later, when the authorities were demanding to leave the briefcase with amber as material evidence. Only Lena’s vigour and my threats of “license security” forced the militia captain to return the briefcase with the deduction of five bead necklaces and gold-looking earrings.

Since she had a unique opportunity to travel, Lena somehow always managed to visit museums and exhibitions.

St. Petersburg used to inspire, transform Lena, because it was her city (it turned out that her father came from St. Petersburg and her mother from Moscow). Meanwhile, Moscow used to destroy her. She would suddenly change, become reserved and would spangle pompous Moscow ladies with kitsch jewellery with no inspiration. And only a friend, an editor Natasha from Moscow could persuade her into visiting her on our way back from St. Petersburg. She then would give an outstanding performance with butterflies and dragonflies in the editors’ office.

The Amber Room changed our lives. Back then it was a small workshop in Tsarskoye Selo, with fantastic sociable people, the restorers who would open the doors of their workshop to everyone, who took us to eat in their canteen and gladly showed us sections of the workshop, as well as discussed and shared with us their amber-related ideas and skills. It was only later when they got patrons, money, state-of-the-art machinery and photographic equipment. Those people were absolutely ambition-free and soon Boris, Volodia and Sasha became best friends with a fair-haired girl from Kaliningrad. While I was discussing technological issues of collaboration, Lena was more interested in history of the Room and the materials. Top quality material, which has never been available to Kaliningrad craftsmen, was allocated for constructing the Amber Room, so Lena was literally bathing in the light of finished, but yet uninstalled panels. That was the time when we became obsessed with the idea of using amber for interior. She felt sorry for the amber cut into pieces, she argued, urged to love the stone. This was incomprehensible to the old lapidaries of St. Petersburg, spoilt by traditions, since they did not completely understand the fanciful fragile stone. Later Boris Pavlovich Igdalov opened the whole amber design line and their own amber museum. Boris understood that, due to reconstruction of the Amber Room, he reached the highest ranks in the amber industry, his team created practical fashion items, which were being demonstrated at international shows. But they didn’t know and couldn’t imagine the amber that Lena herself used to pick up in the stormy December sea together with the catchers. She used to find and collect amber from her friends, from ordinary people. I remember, once a former prisoner gave her a piece of foamy amber after her yet another show.

In her technique she was using mainly unknown kinds of amber – greenish, with blue or sandy colour tints, impure, treated without following the customary rules or miraculously drilled (some kinds of the amber she used resist drilling). Each of Lena’s stones had its own story, she remembered all of them and used to tell them. St. Petersburg had always welcomed Lena. Even in the difficult year of 2006 we managed to travel to St. Petersburg to participate in the competition “Jewellery Olympus, the World of Stone”. We succeeded in bringing 7 models of amber clothes, 7 interior works at our own expense and to make a superb show at the steps of the Manezh. Among our competitors was a large Rostov designer’s school of the Academy of Architecture and Art under the guidance of Lidia Stadnicenko, we had no our own models (we had to borrow someone else’s), however the superb show was a success. Everyone who was acquainted with Lena knew the way how she was doing it. The result was a special diploma for the collection of podium amber jewellery and the silver “Grand-prix” badge.

Lena felt happy, she desperately needed the long-waited recognition of St. Petersburg, it inspired her and this event may have conditioned the later victories. There wasn’t enough of energy for everything; however we were able to go on a traditional night out in St. Petersburg, visited pubs, feasted at Sasha’s workshop at Solianoj alleyway. However, that one is a separate story, there are some pictures. Sasha arranged a three-room apartment into a workshop-museum, which was suitable for living, working and welcoming friends. (Lena was always dreaming of such a workshop… She was living cooped up and working with borrowed equipment all her life, so after returning from St. Petersburg she set up a clear task to put a machine in her bedroom). Sergey helped to purchase it by instalments and I bought the showcase. (She was persuading the head of Oktiabrskij District and giving him presents asking for some help with financing many times – all in vain) and everyone knows that by the end of her life she finally got her own machine and her own showcase. And while we were wandering on foot around the night-time city there was a possibility to discuss the future of our children and the creative plans. Then she was telling me a lot about the burden brought by the time of the kingdom of money, she told me many things about the period when we didn’t communicate after fire at my production site in 2003. (That fire was discussed in the press, it happened after controversies with the authorities and no one was in a hurry to fight it, luckily enough there were no casualties). Despite the achievements in her work which became tangible in the recent years, she was disgusted with the theatrical pseudo-creative environment, which has been formed around amber. This is why she has always reached out for the places where the real creativity was implemented – for example, the “Amber Castle Museum” of Jantarnyj village. Lena got acquainted with Igor Viktorovich Kazakov in 2007. Possessing the “Aries intuition” she actually got her claws into Igor Viktorovich, this advanced person, the genuine supporter of the amber industry. She admired his conceptions, the ancient columns, arguing about the forms of presenting amber in expositions. Her first participation in the life of the museum was the first auction of the “Amber Castle”. Lena’s works were not purchased and she remained content: “This means my dandelions shall remain in Russia!” – she said. Igor Viktorovich used to gratuitously give Lena unique amber, without ceremony, with no bureaucratic procrastination, this was extremely important, since Lena was in a hurry. … As an act of gratitude, as if feeling that she had little time left in this world, she presented the museum with an oak-wood composition, which can be currently seen at the exhibition’s place of honour. She didn’t have time to make a show which we planned to arrange in the Castle on 15 September 2009, at Jelena’s anniversary celebration. (2009 was the first year when we didn’t manage to celebrate birthdays of our friends, thus in a cost-saving measure we decided to celebrate all the birthdays and anniversaries on the same day). It seems that we still follow her lead even after she is gone.

Poland was a separate part of Lena’s soul. For the first time ever Lena and I managed to get out to the Polish town Lebork in 1995.

This story could by entitled “Russians going abroad for the first time, acquiring many friends and getting into Interpol’s lists”. As I have told earlier, “STUDKO” was developing at a great pace and we had a need to purchase modern amber polishing equipment. Having raised money at exhibitions during one year, we decided to travel to Lebork passing the entire country since the town is located at the Polish border with Germany. Making passports and getting travel documents is another interesting story. As was our departure. First of all, we went by Lena’s car with a broken fuel-injection pump, so it was necessary to pump the pedal with a foot all of the time.

Then there were three of us travelling: me, Lena and our friend Lionia from Kemerov, who was the only person good at driving (I couldn’t trust Lena, because at that time she has already knocked down a cow along the road). We left at 5 a.m., Lionia driving until the border, me holding a bag with the money, Lena in charge of the food. We had to change places at the border and Lena was dragging along, constantly pumping the pedal of fuel-injection pump with a stiletto-heeled foot through all the border posts. Then she got tired of it and she stopped the car at the border where vehicles were not allowed to stop; she just let go off the steering wheel and said that she couldn’t continue. Who could have known that that was a usual place of passing on smuggled goods? Armed riflemen jumped out of nowhere and our lady was taken to the Interpol bus. The fuel to the fire was also added by water-filled 50-litre spirit canister, which was discovered by the police in the trunk of our car. We were tortured for a long time, I even remembered the partly Polish language, remaining in my memory since the days of childhood, and then we were finally released. But that was not the whole story, before the Lebork the car refused to go further and I should do justice to Lena, who found people in the village, who replaced the sodding fuel-injection pump for 20 dollars. Lena was always hungry and whereas I was keeping the food reserve I was starving everybody out until the end of the whole operation. In the evening we celebrated a successful purchase of machining device (Poles used to steal technologies from Germans and sell them to Russia), thus we were sitting in the canteen. Since the local Poles obviously lacked fluency in Russian, Lena gestured and ordered a pile of food for 60 dollars. Who could have known that they serve inhumanly huge portions! Having stuffed our faces (Lena took her time to finish), we didn’t eat for two days. Later that evening we scared Polish youth away with our dances at a local discotheque.

We had transported the equipment back home and it served us well until it burned in 2003 fire.

The Poles welcomed Lena, even though she was not from the Baltics. The reason for their affection was the fact that Lena absorbed all the best that a person living in Europe can acquire – the freedom and the creativity. During the subsequent years Lena, being a grown up, took a risk of going to study to Gdansk, in a school of Gedimin. This unique person arranged a European amber school. Lena was learning in an international group at her own expense. Later “the growth of professional level of Lena’s works” has been observed due to the unique creative environment. She was well accepted, even now one can spot a reverent attitude of Lena’s course mates towards her.

“The Russian woman ate little, worked a lot and found time to communicate with everyone” – remembers a course mate. Unfortunately, Europe has its own bureaucracy, which destroyed the Gedimin project and Lena didn’t receive her diploma (there was a year and a half left). Later Lena was actually conducting activities on organizing exhibitions of the Russian Union of Amber Artists at the annual “Amberif” and “Amber Trip” exhibitions.

She couldn’t attend the last exhibitions in 2009 for health reasons.

I recall how she managed to visit all her acquaintances, speak to them, admire the works of others and show herself at the exhibitions. No wonder that she used to lose her voice after two days and upon returning from shows she would be ill for several weeks. Due to her excitement she could never eat properly, she used to drink beer, exploit her nervous system to the limits, there were depressions turning into rampage and unwillingness to see anyone.

How difficult it is to understand a person with a vulnerable soul, who fell from the Pisces epoch into the raging times of the Aquarius epoch, when a person’s presentable appearance is valued instead of his abilities, where humanism remains unappreciated, while mediocrity and sanctimony flourish. Indirectly communicating with the Government, she has more than once shared with me her concerns about degradation of the governing structures and the decaying intellectuals. No doubt it was killing her. This gave even greater value to the evenings arranged by Lena at her place. Lena would unite people that were so different that they would have never found a common ground in the daylight – they were constantly competing in the creative field. Surprisingly, this public would get along just fine at Lena’s evening parties and simply enjoyed themselves.

We have all lost something very important to us when she left us. First and foremost, we lost a very superior person, who surrounded everyone with the light of love, happiness and joy. This is why no one believes in what happened.

Preparing for the anniversary celebration, she asked me to arrange the anniversary material, thus I accumulated a lot of material, photographs and set up an archive. Lena couldn’t take on this work herself (she was in a great hurry) thus there is a hope to preserve this heritage, there is still a possibility of organizing a mobile studio for promotion of the Russian amber. And no matter who shall its supervisor be, it is important to keep the “Gradinarova-like” approach and the atmosphere of working with amber. Lena always managed to involve in this process great numbers of different people. Please feel free to communicate her ideas further and to implement everything that Lena ever came up with.