Mermaid Princess Amelia – Best Mermaid Book Series For Teenagers

The Southern Baltic – A Mermaid Kingdom in “Mermaid Princess Amelia and the Lost Symphony” by Maxine Foti

The Southern Baltic is one of mermaid kingdoms located in the Baltic Sea, which hosts several other counties, such as Nerland or Hailand.

The Southern Baltic is ruled by the Zielińscy royal family. This family is quite conservative, and focused mostly on the needs of the elderly part of the society. Because of it, the younger parts migrated to other countries. Overtime, the country was hit by a demographical crisis and became depopulated. When the older princess, Sawa Zielińska, was crowned, few people were left, and after a year, there wasn’t anybody anymore. Despite her best attempts to reverse migration, nothing could be done. Over time, Sawa and her younger sister Mewa, both migrated. Now, nobody’s living in the Southern Baltic, and it looks like, the country might be attacked and conquered by its closest neighbor, Nerland, in the future.

It seems that the language spoken in the Southern Baltic, is Polish. The legendary Polish mermaid whose statue decorates Warsaw’s most popular market square, is named Sawa. Also, “Mewa” means “seagull” in Polish.

One of Sawa’s possessions, is a silver ring with amber eye. The Baltic Sea is famous for its amber, which is considered to be one of the finest and also the only one that has healing effects. It’s also interesting to know that the Southern Baltic has cold and generally unsalty waters, and that the mermaids from that region have tails that resemble the herring.

The Southern Baltic in “Stories from the Undersea World of Mermaid Princess Amelia, Vol. 1” by Maxine Foti

The Southern Baltic was well described as a mermaid kingdom in Sawa’s story in “Stories from the Undersea World of Mermaid Princess Amelia, Vol. 1”. It turns out that the real name of the mermaid kingdom is “Bursztynia” which means “Amber Kingdom” in Polish.

Its royal gardens are described as the most famous in the Baltic Sea. The kingdom is an underwater realm with a rococo royal palace, a royal court, nobility, servants, temples, cellars, gardens, and an amber-based culture. The zloty is the currency of both Bursztynia and Poland, and the royal family speaks Polish. Outside Bursztynia, the sea has been polluted, depleted, and “turned into a desert” by humans; inside the kingdom, amber is guarded and its removal is strictly regulated.

Royal Family and Lineage

Queen Walentyna is Sawa’s mother, the queen, and a tall woman who keeps her dark auburn hair in an updo adorned with strings of pristine pearls. She wears natural make-up, has a pale, stern-looking face, and favors flowing light pink gowns. She is described as feminine and charming in appearance, but she lacks human warmth. She is traditional, conservative, and has established views on many matters, especially political ones. Sawa is her daughter, a princess, and the “birthday girl” for whom the famous amber tree is prepared. Mewa is Sawa’s younger sister. Grandmother Łucja is mentioned as having requested that the mermaid community in Königsberg bring the Amber Room back to Bursztynia. King Witold I ruled in the 17th century and created the royal gardens. Princess Salomea was King Witold I’s younger and beloved sister; the Temple of Princess Salomea is named after her. Aunt Anastazja is Queen Walentyna’s sister and Sawa’s maternal aunt; she was an extravagant mermaid who left Poland when Sawa was nine, wore dyed sea-urchin earrings and deep necklines, and once appeared in a zebra-striped dress. Queen Walentyna called her coarse and vulgar.

The Rococo Palace and Court

The royal palace of Bursztynia is rococo in style. Its halls are covered with wallpapers printed with tiny wildflowers and decorated with gold leaf and a cornucopia of amber blossoms. The doors are decorated with sea cherubs. A vertical corridor divides the floors, and that corridor is covered with fantastic frescos. The palace has a ground floor and a ballroom. The ballroom is a warm-colored room with gold and silver accents and lush velvet curtains. Its tall windows have rounded corners trimmed with gold and let in a flood of light. A music stage is hidden in the darker part of the room. The palace also contains a large room filled with rosy pillars, where Sawa plays a grand piano with three keyboards. There are glass doors between windows, and servants open them. The palace has many amber rooms—Sawa begins listing them when she sees the secret Amber Room. There are also various szlachta manors with rooms that Sawa considers better than the Amber Room. Szlachta is the collective term for Polish nobility, including magnates, voivodes, bishops, chancellors, castellans, knights, and others.

The Royal Gardens

The royal gardens of Bursztynia are the most famous in the Baltic Sea. They were created by King Witold I in the 17th century as a mixture of formal and natural design. They are best known for their undersea roses—cream, pink, and tea-colored ones—but they also contain classical arches, an elegant resting square, and an old orangery where the merpeople kept trying to grow orange trees underwater. Sawa spent her whole childhood playing alone in these gardens, and she believed they held no more secrets.

The Temple of Princess Salomea and the Secret Passage

The Temple of Princess Salomea is dedicated to King Witold I’s younger and beloved sister. Inside, there is another fresco and a chandelier made from metallic vines, resembling a tree crown with cherries made from amber. The chandelier hangs from a round gilded plate that looks like a trap door. Its stem has several brilliant amber dots that imitate resin, and one dot is missing. Queen Walentyna gives Sawa the “door-opening ring,” an inconspicuous and cheap-looking ring that cost no more than one hundred zlotys. The ring has the same amber dot. When Sawa places it near the tiny hole, a mechanism clicks and a secret passage is revealed. Although the temple has only one floor, the corridor leads up under the roof, down the wall, and then into the cellars of the royal palace. This is the only way to access a secret chamber.

The Amber Room

The secret chamber in the palace cellars is the Amber Room. It is rather dark, but the amber panels and golden artifacts stored there glow as if alive. Tall mirrors have intricately designed golden frames decorated with cherubs—but these are cherubs of land, not children of the sea. Other details do not completely fit Bursztynia’s style. It looks as if someone tried to replicate the world’s most stunning interiors without disclosing that they were located in the sea. Queen Walentyna explains that the Amber Room is one of the greatest mysteries for humans of the region. In the 17th century, Frederick I of Prussia asked his trusted gem sculptor from Gdańsk to create décor for an amber room. The queen imagines the sculptor must have had mermaid contacts to obtain so much amber and create such artwork. Sawa asks whether their compatriots helped extract the amber from Bursztynia. Queen Walentyna says no, because Bursztynia was always very possessive of its amber. Historians state that the Amber Room was stolen from the kingdom, perhaps even in large sections, and the sculptor modified it to look human-made. Peter the Great fell in love with the room, so it was gifted to him and moved to Petersburg, Russia. During World War II, the Germans stole it and hid it in Königsberg Castle in East Prussia. People believe it was destroyed during the bombing, but the mermaid community living there brought it back at the request of Sawa’s grandmother Łucja.

Amber, Resources, and Laws

Bursztynia is rich in amber and deeply protective of it. The kingdom has clear rules about how much amber can be taken outside the sea every year, but humans continue breaking those rules. Queen Walentyna says that in ancient times Bursztynia was generous to the people living by the shore, but those people overstepped boundaries and took advantage of that kindness to possess what did not belong to them. Even now, humans are depleting the kingdom’s food sources, polluting the waters, and turning the sea into a desert. She tells Sawa to keep the door-opening ring so that the Amber Room reminds her never to trust humans completely. The famous amber tree is spectacular: its branches are made from platinum and rose gold, its flowers from opaque yellow amber, and its fruits from orange, red, and brown amber. The fruits made Sawa think of good luck amulets. Queen Walentyna says the tree will stun everyone during Sawa’s birthday festivities.

Culture, Society, and Politics

Bursztynia is a monarchy with a queen, a king in its history, princesses, and a noble class. The palace is opulent and rococo, with amber decorations, gold leaf, frescos, and sea cherubs. Royal birthdays are grand occasions, with centerpieces like the amber tree. Queen Walentyna is traditional and conservative, and her political views often put her at odds with Sawa. Sawa disagrees with her mother’s lesson about never trusting humans completely; she stopped wearing the ring for a long time because she did not quite agree with what her mother had said, though she later chooses to wear it again. Their relationship becomes more challenging as Sawa grows older. Much of the strife between them followed the sudden death of Queen Walentyna’s sister, Aunt Anastazja. Aunt Anastazja wanted to instill some of her own crazy character in Sawa and make sure she would not grow up to be a rigid, prideful young woman whose knowledge of life did not extend beyond the palace walls. In Bursztynia, fashion includes pearl-adorned updos, flowing gowns, cubic zirconia rather than diamonds because diamonds give a white, cold glow while cubic zirconia gives a warmer sparkle, and sea-urchin earrings dyed and worn by the more extravagant.

Language, Currency, and Daily Life

The zloty is the currency of both Bursztynia and Poland. The door-opening ring was worth no more than one hundred zlotys. Polish is spoken in the royal family, and it is noted that Polish can reduce almost any name, even foreign ones, into a sweet-sounding nickname. Sawa is called “Sawunia” by her mother and “Mewunia” is used for Mewa. Sawa also knows Ocean language, which she uses when speaking with a trader. Daily life in the palace includes swimming through halls, playing a three-keyboard grand piano, taking meals, receiving unofficial gifts, and maintaining secret passages. The kingdom has servants, glass doors, windows, curtains, mirrors, cellars, temples, gardens, and an old orangery. The merpeople of Bursztynia can travel to human lands, as Aunt Anastazja did, and the royal family has connections to mermaid communities abroad, such as the community in Königsberg that returned the Amber Room at Grandmother Łucja’s request.

The Southern Baltic in “Stories from the Undersea World of Mermaid Princess Amelia, Vol. 2” by Maxine Foti

Bursztynia was also described as a memory in Mewa’s story in “Stories from the Undersea World of Mermaid Princess Amelia, Vol. 2.”

Mewa’s cold northern homeland, characterized by rigid, palatial structures and the “cold, briny waters of the Baltic.” It is a place of royal duty, formal expectations, and the weight of tradition. Mewa’s mother would have been “horrified” by her reading Glimmerich’s scandalous novels, suggesting a conservative, restrictive culture.

The palace library had a section on maritime treaties where Mewa would hide and read romance novels, indicating the repressive atmosphere she fled.

The Southern Baltic in “Mermaid Princess Amelia and the Destiny’s Theater” by Maxine Foti

Bursztynia: The Amber Wonderland of the Southern Baltic

Bursztynia, known internationally as the Amber Wonderland and alternatively referred to as the Southern Baltic, encompasses the entire geographical area of the southern reaches of the Baltic Sea. This realm takes its name from its most treasured resource—amber, the fossilized tree resin that has shaped the kingdom’s history, economy, and identity for generations. The kingdom serves as the homeland of Princesses Sawa and Mewa, whose contrasting approaches to leadership reflect the difficult choices facing a nation in crisis. The name “Southern Baltic” represents the region’s geographical identity, while “Bursztynia” speaks to its cultural and economic heritage, both referring to the same kingdom that spans the southern waters of the Baltic Sea.

The kingdom’s amber resources have traditionally provided wealth and trade opportunities, connecting the realm to markets across the Baltic and beyond. However, current challenges threaten the very survival of the nation. Environmental crises, particularly dead zones caused by excessive algae growth that dies and decays, depleting oxygen levels in the water, create a pressing threat to the marine ecosystem. Seafloor organisms and invertebrates die off, potentially collapsing the marine food chain, and mermaids could face starvation if the problem continues unchecked. The Southern Baltic representative must be included in the upcoming summit addressing dead zones, demonstrating the region’s urgent need for international cooperation to combat this environmental catastrophe.

Political and economic struggles compound the environmental challenges. The kingdom faces significant depopulation, with residents leaving for other realms in search of opportunities, while the treasury stands nearly empty, leaving the nation unable to provide financial support to potential allies or invest in solutions to its problems. Despite these challenges, the Southern Baltic’s strategic location and amber resources make it a significant player in Baltic geopolitics, and its struggles reflect the broader environmental and economic pressures facing the region.

The rivalry between Sawa and Mewa represents the difficult choices facing the kingdom. Sawa gave up on the country entirely, cutting ties with her family and now living in Portugal, where she runs an antique bookshop and struggles as a self-employed trader in old books. She left the Underground due to high fees and warns others about the dangers of the locked central area, her experiences having made her cynical about community institutions. Mewa, by contrast, plans to take over the throne, her return from traveling with Captain Jet Mir signaling her determination to lead her homeland through its crises. Her distinctive appearance—colorblind, with orange-red hair to her clavicles, freckles, and dungarees—marks her as far from the traditional image of a princess, while her plan to take over the throne demonstrates her commitment to saving her kingdom.

The struggle between these two princesses reflects the broader tensions within Bursztynia. Some residents, like Sawa, have given up hope and left, while others, like Mewa, see the kingdom’s challenges as a call to action. The environmental crisis of dead zones, combined with economic struggles and depopulation, creates an urgent need for decisive leadership. Mewa’s determination to take over the throne suggests a transition of power is imminent, as the Southern Baltic confronts environmental and economic crises that threaten its very survival. The kingdom’s future depends on whether its leaders can address the dead zones that threaten the marine ecosystem, rebuild the economy, and inspire residents to stay and build a better future for the Amber Wonderland.