The only amber factory in the world is located in Yantarny, the Kaliningrad Region. Baltic amber is a specific subset of amber that is found only in northern Europe: it accounts for some 80% of the known amber in the world. Between 35 and 50 million years ago, sap oozed out from a forest of conifers (probably either false larch or kauri) in the region now covered by the Baltic Sea, and eventually hardened into clear lumps. Shoved around northern Europe by glaciers and river channels, lumps of genuine Baltic amber can still be found today on the eastern coasts of England and Holland, throughout Poland, Scandinavia and northern
Germany and much of western Russia and the Baltic states. About 90% of the world's extractable amber is still located in the Kaliningrad Region of Russia on the Baltic Sea (which was previously Königsberg in Prussia, before World War II). By the time the Russian army entered Prussia, Germans had stopped extracting amber so they had to restore the pit and build new infrastructure. Thus, in June, 1948, it was put into operation. In 1960, they opened a new pit but due to some projecting mistakes they had to keep on working at the old one even though it was officially closed in 1972.
