A Soviet-era holiday haven once frequented by its erstwhile leaders is finding a new place in the sun.

The Amber Coast sanatorium located in the Latvian seaside resort of Jurmala features a dacha where Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev would greet his guests. A clock with a hammer-and-sickle pendulum ticks in the corner, just as it did during the Breznhev era; a portrait of Lenin stares down from the wall.

Now, 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, parties of a different kind make use of this residence in the former Soviet republic.

The dacha attracts patrons interested in re-experiencing the atmosphere of the Soviet era, tapping into a nostalgia for what some, in these hard economic times, regard as a more stable and secure bygone age.

In the dacha's basement is a private cinema, sauna and swimming pool, while the first floor contains bedrooms and a full office - complete with "nuclear emergency" telephones.

The ground floor has a large dining hall, a library stocked with Marx and Lenin and a lecture room.

Anyone with the necessary cash can follow in the footsteps of Politburo members and enjoy auth-entic Soviet cuisine and entertainment. Guests can even have 1970s news bulletins shown on the period television sets.

"We get visitors from Germany, Finland and the United Kingdom and also locals, including private parties and companies," says Victoria Tjamolova, who works in the main sanatorium building, a minute's walk away.

Some stay in the dacha for a single night, while others emulate Brezhnev and his friends, who would stay for weeks at a time.

"This sanatorium was built for the people who worked in the Soviet president's office, and we still belong to the Russian president's office," says director Oleg Baransky, whose business card bears the double-headed eagle of the Russian Federation.

The third-largest resort in the Soviet Union after Yalta and Sochi, Jurmala was regarded as especially chic. "People from Russia came here as if they were really going abroad," says Gunta Uspele, director of Jurmala's tourist information department. "The architecture, the food, the fashions were all much more modern. On the other hand, people felt at home because everyone could speak Russian."

As the sanatorium of the Kremlin, the Amber Coast was for senior government staff.

At the other end of Jurmala's 30-km-long golden beach, the Belorusiya Sanatorium is just as impressive as the Amber Coast and, as the name suggests, catered to visitors from Belarus.

It's a trend that continues to this day, with three-quarters of visitors travelling from Latvia's southern neighbour.

"The Belorusiya has always been regarded as providing the highest standards and was one of the most privileged sanatoriums," says administrator Elena Lopatko, in her office beneath a portrait of Belorussian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Almost two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, just three sanatoriums remain in Jurmala, the others having closed because of competition from resorts in Estonia, the Czech Republic and Poland. But the Russian influence remains strong.

This influence is underlined every summer, during Jurmala's glitzy New Wave song contest.

The New Wave event is an extravaganza showcasing pop singers mainly from across the former Soviet Union, along with a smattering of old-time favourites such as Alla Pugacheva and Raimonds Pauls.

Some Latvians resent the influx of rich Russians, but New Wave is seen as a positive phenomenon in Jurmala given the current economic crisis, says Uspele of the tourist information department.

"The inhabitants and the [city] understand that [the song festival] brings a lot of money and is a big advertisement for the city around the world. It provides jobs and has helped to make Jurmala better known in the east than either Latvia [itself] or Riga," she says.