Архив метки: Yantarny

Amber Legend restaurant Yantarny

Amber Legend Yantarny is a jewel in the coastal town!

Yantarny: sea, sand and the Amber Legend restaurant

Updated: 24 August 2022 | First published: 30 April 2022 ~ Amber Legend Yantarny is a jewel in the coastal town!

The ‘Amber Restaurant’ as people refer to it, although its real name is Amber Legend, is located in Yantarny, a small coastal resort nestled on the edge of the Baltic in Russia’s Kaliningrad region. Yantarny is held in high regard for its Blue Flag beach, which is all white sand, and for its good, clean air.

It is also known for the Amber Legend, a novel and attractive restaurant cunningly constructed on a split-level plan.

Built on a fairly steep incline, the pavement entrance to Amber Legend accesses what is effectively the upper ground floor, while the doors at the rear of the building lead to the lower level.

Externally, the building is invested with more than a touch of the neoclassical. It follows a simple but imposing geometrical outline, with dominating rectangular upright supports, a balustrade balcony traversing the width of the building and a matching balustrade parapet. After an introduction of this calibre, anything less internally, both upper and lower level, would be disappointing, but happily this is not the case: aesthetic integrity and continuity are safely, indeed inspiringly, assured.

The question is, however, why did the proprietors of the Amber Legend not call their establishment ‘Blue Flag restaurant’, ‘good clean air’ or ‘split-level neoclassical eatery’? Why the ‘Amber’ and why the ‘Legend’?

There are two possible reasons, one lesser known to some and the other, one trusts, obvious to anyone who has frequented the restaurant in person. The first most conceivably has to do with Yantarny’s massive amber reserves. Approximately 90 per cent of the world’s amber resources are sitting in Yantarny. They are mined upon an industrial scale using the open-quarry method.

The second, inspired by the first, has visible connotations, since both the exterior and interior of the building are lavishly decorated with variegated stones of genuine polished amber. Inside the restaurant the precious ancient resin is taken to another level of artistic meritocracy, as richly inlaid amber panels of many different hues sharing geometrical space with amber art assemblages. (Thanks for the word, Vit!) vie for your attention.

Amber Legend Yantarny
Artwork Amber Legend Yantarny

There are amber trims to the seats; amber-studded back rests; inset amber wall plaques; the bar is adorned with amber; and the ceiling-suspended lamp shades, bowls of amber inlay, are interwoven tiffany style.

Of particular note are the broad wooden panels, chain-hoisted close to the ceiling, each containing a window of different coloured amber stones lamp-backed for illumination.

Confoundingly, when we visited the restaurant, it was during the daylight hours, so that although in the room’s darker recesses some of the lamps were lit, the full effect of the interplay between light source and amber creation was lost in the dilution of overpowering, brilliant sunlight. However, the upside to this was in the excuse that it presented, which was as good as any that I could invent, for returning on an evening to witness what most assuredly must be a lighting display of artistic splendour.

  • Bar & Dance Floor Amber Legend
  • Amber Panels in Yaltarny restuarant
  • Bar & Dance Floor Kaliningrad region restaurant
  • Amber Legend bar
  • Interior decor restaurant Russia
  • Amber light panels in Yaltarny restaurant
  • Amber Legend Yaltarny bar

Another sphere of artistic splendour, according to my wife, who had dined at Amber Legend before, was lurking in the toilets, and this, she said, was something that I must see.

Amber Legend Yantarny legendary toilet

Now, contrary to what you may have been told, I am not in the habit, not even rarely, of taking a camera into the toilet, but called upon by my wife to do so, strictly on account of the brilliance of the interior décor, I cast caution to the wind, in a manner of speaking, and made an exception on this occasion. The result of this promiscuity is documented here in two revealing photographs, illustrating the continuation of the amber theme, both in the ornamentation surrounding the wash basins and, more spectacularly, in a glass-windowed chamber recessed within the toilet floor, where chunks of amber of novel shapes and some of prodigious proportions turn everyday humble toilet into a veritable natural history museum, even at the inconvenience of others wanting to use the convenience.

You may have liked the loo, but do you like the blue? In my humble opinion, the TARDIS-blue woodwork that repeats itself throughout the restaurant, including the toilet, creates the perfect frame for the amber displays. It is just neutral enough without subsiding into plain and functions as a recall feature of Amber Legend’s personalised style. I call the colour TARDIS blue because recognisably that is what it is, which is why I should imagine we chose this colour for our TARDIS, the one that we built at home. But then, I suppose, it is not that unusual; just the colour of choice for everyone’s TARDIS.

At this point I would normally add a footnote about the food, so why disappoint. But first a caveat. As you probably recall, whilst making allowances for having been called gormless ~ and who wouldn’t want to be, for it is such a lovely word ~ gourmet I am not. Beer needs volume; food needs volume. There is only one winner. But, when we visited Amber Legend I was feeling rather peckish, so I did partake of the pizza, which was pretty good as pizza goes. However, my fellow patrons, who needless to say were more adventurous in their choice of dishes than I, as most normal people appear to be, reliably informed me that their meals were most enjoyable. And I have no reason to doubt their sincerity.

The verdict is, therefore, that when visiting this coastal jewel in Kaliningrad region’s amber crown (remember the name, Yantarny) make sure your experience is complete: Discover the Amber Legend!

Amber Legend Yantarny

Essential details

Amber Legend
66A Sovetskaya Ulitsa
Yantarny
Kaliningrad Olblast
Russia

Tel: +7 (401) 233-55-25

Open until 12am

Copyright © 2018-2022 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

By Volga to Yantarny Russian Easter and Beautiful Coast

By Volga to Yantarny Russian Easter and Beautiful Coast

Traditional Easter in Kaliningrad, Russia

Published: 27 April 2022 ~ By Volga to Yantarny Russian Easter and Beautiful Coast

Whilst the French were masochistically (or should that be Macronistically)  condemning themselves to another five years of neoliberal arrogance in which cash is king but people and culture are, according to their president, there to be p_ _ _ _ d on, we, here, in Russia were celebrating one of the most important holidays in the Orthodox Christian Calendar, Easter ~ a time for observing sanctified traditions, passing those traditions on to the next generation and uniting family and friends.

Easter eggs play an essential role within the Christian ethos of this holiday, not the chocolate variety, but actual eggs, hard boiled and dyed typically red using onion skins. I recall one Easter in the UK when my wife Olga and her English class decorated hard-boiled eggs in a variety of elaborate and brightly coloured patterns; a labour of love no doubt but a formidable task no less. Nowadays, modern techniques make it possible to cheat just a little, using decorative highly coloured and often illustrated bands that once applied to the egg wrap themselves tightly around it.

Hand-painted or not, the eggs, which symbolise resurrection and new life, are blessed in the church and presented as gifts to relatives and friends. Other blessed Easter gifts include bought or home-made cakes and fortified Church wine. We received and gave such fare from and to our friends and neighbours.

Easter Blessing Kaliningrad Russia
The blessing of Easter Gifts in Kaliningrad 2022

By Volga to Yantarny Russian Easter and Beautiful Coast

On Easter Sunday, 24th April, our friends, Arthur and Inara, invited us to be driven in style in their 1970s’ Volga to the seaside resort of Yantarny.

Yantarny is much smaller and further away from Kaliningrad than the increasingly popular resorts of Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk. I had not been there since my brother visited Kaliningrad in May 2019.

As then, the weather today was superb ~ a gorgeous and perfect spring day ~ just right for lounging near the sea and taking snapshots.

Yantarny Russian Easter Olga Hart
If you go down to the woods today …

Since I was last in Yantarny, a number of municipal improvements had been made, and in the coastal woodland, a picturesque pre-sea descent, landscape-sensitive work of both a practical and embellishing nature abounded, including more woodland paths, eclectic artworks and non-obtrusive visitor facilities. One among these is the installation of a wooden-decked observatory, enabling unimpeded views across the white, sandy beach and rolling expanse of the Baltic.

Olga Hart at Yantarny
Looking out across the Baltic Sea

On the coastline itself a series of attractive and much-needed chalet-style café’s interlinked by wooden platforms, each offering inspiring views of the sea, have been tastefully constructed, and it was in one of these that we would stop a while to take advantage of their hospitality.

Sitting outside beneath the shade of the broad eaves, I was befriended by the cafés’ resident stray. No, not that irritating and passively (if you are lucky) aggressive stereotype that blights the British pub and whom everyone tries to avoid, but an old moth-eared and fur-matted cat, slate-grey and socially promiscuous. He obliged me by sitting on my knee and then, after 10 minutes, possibly dissatisfied that no grub had come his way, decided to bite the hand that hadn’t fed him. Ahh well, I thought, if you can’t be bitten by a curmudgeonly old cat over the Easter weekend when can you be bitten by one?

Mick Hart Yantarny Russian Easte

Bitten or not, I was content. I had good friends, good beer, the gentle sound and sight of the sea and was suffused with such a sense of complete and utter relaxation that it seemed to transcend almost everything, even philosophical thought and the quiet reflection with which it is nurtured. Effort was redundant, and effort, for the moment, had been effortlessly put aside.

We ~ as I perceived a communion among all present not only within our small group ~ remained thus for some time, gazing out across a sea that seemed at peace with its gently rippling self as much as we were with ourselves.

We remained this way for over an hour until the sun, shimmering silver across a broad swathe of sea where the surface seemed nearly smooth, challenging the visibility of my 1940s’ sunglasses, prompted us with the realisation that the afternoon was giving away to evening and that we would have to make a move. Alas, the time had come, as it always does; and for all that we had put it on hold, the ebb and flow of our own tide eventually carried us back into town.

The departure was sweetened, however, by calling in for lunch at Yantarny’s Amber Restaurant. What a remarkable place! I think we’ll give it three exclamation marks ~ !!! If you are curious as to why they call it Amber Restaurant, there’s no perhaps about it, you simply need to visit.

Hopefully, I’ll write a little more about it at a later date. For now, however, let’s just say that if the combination of amber, atmosphere, good food and brilliant beverages is something that appeals to you, the Amber Restaurant is the place!!!! There, I’ve gone and given it four exclamation marks. See > Amber Legend Yantarny

Amber Restaurant Yantarny

Fed, beerified and tripping up the step as I left ~ I always do that, it’s not because I was squiffy ~ we walked the short distance to the local church.

In German times Yantarny Church was Lutherian. The restored church is now Orthodox, The Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, and belongs to the Kaliningrad diocese of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. Mellow and mesmerising, it is difficult to imagine an environment more conducive to an appreciation of all that is dear ~ your loved ones, friends, the life you have lived and the current life you are living. Yantarny Church is not just for Easter, or any other special date on the religious calendar, it is an open sanctuary for thought and reflection, a quiet, hallowed place in which to take pause from the daily static of our estranging modern existence.

Yaltarny Church Kaliningrad Region

We had spent approximately three hours in Yantarny. It had been nowhere near enough and the need to return was incipient.  I could definitely feel a weekend break coming on. But first there was the question of how we would leave today.

On emerging from the church, we discovered that Arthur had left the Volga lights switched on, which wasn’t so good for starting the engine. As ordered, I put my shoulder to the front of the big old car and gave it all that I could. Miraculously ~ you might say ~ the lovely old lump (not Arthur, I mean the car) fired up, and although praised for my efforts, and also praising myself, I was secretly reflecting on the mysterious ways in which things move, are moved and how they move us and the wonderful gift of having spent a perfect Easter day.

Copyright © 2018-2022 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.