Monopoly is not a word you would naturally associate with Kaliningrad. Yet the tiny Russian enclave possesses a remarkable -- and entirely natural -- one: amber. Ninety percent of the world's commercial amber comes from just one site, the open-pit amber quarry at Yantarny on Kaliningrad's Baltic coast.
Amber is the fossilized resin from ancient coniferous forests. In northern Europe, 50 million years ago, those forests were immense. They covered large parts of Scandinavia, the Baltic and North Sea regions and beyond. As the resin leaked down the sides of trees, it trapped leaves, seeds, insects and even -- shades of Jurassic Park -- the occasional small lizard. The forests were eventually buried and the resin hardened. The same process occurred in different geological periods in places as diverse as Japan, Myanmar and the United States.
The color of the substance varied greatly, depending on the tree source, the epoch, the temperature and other factors. Oranges, yellows, blues and whites were just some of the shades. Specimens could be anything from fully transparent to completely opaque.