Amber room: history of creation, figures, facts and secrets. The new version of the location of the amber room did not convince historians What happened to the amber room
The First Channel showed the film "The Amber Room" - about the history of the creation of a unique rarity and about the mystical phenomena that have always accompanied the "Amber Room".
The fate of the famous "Amber Room", which was stolen from Tsarskoe Selo during the Great Patriotic War, is the secret of the century. No one has really been able to get close to her so far. This film is a journalistic investigation. It will be built solely on documented facts collected in the archive of the murdered German searcher for the Amber Room Georg Stein, modern research by the historian Alexander Mosyakin, as well as classified materials from the report of special commissions created in 1949 in the USSR and the GDR to search for the Amber Room. For the first time, based on the materials of the unique archive of Georg Stein found in Kaliningrad, the entire intricate chain of events associated with the Amber Room during and after the Great Patriotic War will be restored.
The first episode of the film tells about the history of the creation of a unique rarity and about the mystical phenomena that have always accompanied the "Amber Room". We will find out why this unique exhibit of the Tsarskoye Selo museum was not included in the lists for evacuation. In search of traces of the Amber Room, we will visit pre-war Koenigsberg, underground bunkers and secret military facilities from the Second World War. We will reveal the main secret of the Amber Room - we will tell in whose hands it fell at the very end of the war and we will name the main defendants in this complicated case.
The second series of the film tells about the tragic fate of the German seeker of the "Amber Room" Georg Stein and about two of his finds, for which he paid with his life - the treasures of the "glass coffins" and the Nazi treasure from the Grossleben mine. You will find out why the boxes with the "Amber Room" disappeared from the royal castle in Koenigsberg. Where did they go. And where did the traces of the "Amber Room" lead us at the end of the investigation.
From the very beginning, the Amber Room not only symbolized the beauty of amber, but also had a political history. Frederick I became king of Prussia in 1701 and in the same year ordered the Amber Cabinet - his task was to consolidate his new status. His son, the militant Friedrich Wilhelm, presented the cabinet to Peter I when concluding an alliance between Russia and Prussia against the Swedes, hinting that Prussia controls the Baltic. When the USSR, after a long and unsuccessful search for a rarity stolen by the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, began the reconstruction of the Amber Room (during the Cold War), it was assumed that it would become a symbol of the country's power. When Putin solemnly opened the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace in 2003 in the presence of 40 heads of state, it was a demonstration of the possibilities of the new Russia.
The restoration of the Amber Room lasted 25 years, 6 tons of amber were used, the restoration of the masterpiece cost $ 11.5 million. The original is estimated at $500 million. Traces of the Amber Room were lost in Koenigsberg, one of the most mysterious and mystical European cities with a complex system of underground structures created to strengthen the city under Bismarck. There are legends around Koenigsberg, today's Kaliningrad, that the ghosts of Wehrmacht soldiers are still marching there... The secret services of several states, historians, writers and adventurers were searching for the Amber Room, but the mystery of the disappearance of amber treasures remained one of the unresolved mysteries of the 20th century.
Taking pictures in the Amber Room is not allowed, and if sometimes they don’t pay much attention to it, then they are strictly monitored here. This photograph is evidence of a terrible crime committed by me two years ago. Filmed on an iPhone, literally mechanically. To be honest, I don’t understand why museums don’t allow filming. Can someone explain? The rest of the photos - from the world by thread.
If there is someone who does not know where the Amber Room is - let me know. The restored masterpiece is located in its historical place - in the Catherine Palace in the city of Pushkin, the nearest suburb of St. Petersburg. Where the original is located and whether it has been preserved is still unknown.
PRUSIAN GIFT
The Amber Room is the most famous diplomatic gift. He made a lot of noise, however, not when he was donated, but more than 200 years later, when he was stolen during the Great Patriotic War. The history of amber, the history of world wars and international trade are inseparable. Since ancient times, Baltic amber has attracted the powers that be - the cost of amber was huge and control over its extraction promised big profits. Frederick I discovered huge reserves of amber in the cellars of the Königsberg castle, which had been left over from the time of the Teutonic Knights. He ordered the Amber Cabinet, work on which began 2 years before the founding of St. Petersburg. Frederick's son, Friedrich Wilhelm, like Peter I, was more interested in war than in art. Almost for the first time in the history of amber, Peter's military goals are connected not with it, but with Russia's access to the Baltic Sea in a strategic sense.
Amber was then called "Baltic gold" and it still, as in ancient times, remained very expensive - it cost about 12 times more than gold. The essence of the technology when creating panels for Friedrich's office was to grind the stone and mix it with cognac, honey and linseed oil. Then the pieces of the panels were glued onto a wooden base. The technology was expensive and not very perfect. As it turns out later, the Amber Room will require constant reconstruction and restoration.
Peter I liked the gift, as a reciprocal diplomatic gift, he sent Friedrich Wilhelm 55 Russian grenadiers 2 meters tall. The Russian Tsar began to decorate the "Room of Miracles" in the Summer Palace, located in the Summer Garden. But either the worries of the war, or the condition of the amber, which required reconstruction, led to the fact that such a room did not appear in the palace, and the Prussian gift remained in storage in the Summer Palace. His daughter Elizabeth will bring the matter to mind in 40 years. She invited many craftsmen and spent a lot of money - the amber room was originally created in the Winter Palace, then moved to the Catherine Palace, which is located in the current city of Pushkin. The room was much larger than the one for which the amber decoration was created. Therefore, the architect Rastrelli added a number of details - pilasters, mirrors in gilded frames, etc.
The poet Théophile Gauthier described it in 1866 as follows: "You literally go blind from these warm and rich colors: here you will find all shades of yellow, from smoky topaz to bright lemon ... Gold seems dull and false in comparison with amber, especially when on the walls sunlight falls and runs through the transparent veins of yantr. Gauthier believes that the room allows the eye to rest from the long Russian winter, since it stores sunlight in itself.
THE KIDNAPPING AND SEARCH OF THE AMBER ROOM
Although the Nazis failed to capture Leningrad, they occupied the nearest suburbs, including Pushkin with the Catherine Palace, which by this time was already a museum. The Amber Room was not included in the evacuation list, the walls were simply disguised. The Germans found it and took it to the Königsberg Castle, where the room was partially installed and even demonstrated. When Koenigsberg began to be bombed (most likely the room was partially damaged by fire), it was again put into boxes in August 1944, and in April 1945 the city was occupied by Soviet troops. During this interval, the Amber Room disappeared. A lot of books and films are devoted to the search for the room, super-professionals and ordinary people were looking for it, many died because of it. One of the victims was a farmer from Germany, Georg Stein, who devoted more than 30 years of his life to searching for the Amber Room. He was found dead in a forest in Bavaria with scalpel marks. On the eve of Georg Stein said that he came close to unraveling. Information about the search for the Amber Room periodically hits the front pages of newspapers.
Together with the Amber Room, a unique collection of amber rarities disappeared. Many hope that if the room is still found, then there will be a unique Koenigsberg collection along with it. One of the key figures associated with the amber room in Koenigsberg was Alfred Rode, curator of amber rarities in the Koenigsberg castle, an outstanding amber specialist and fanatic. At a key moment, the scientist fell ill, and after he was informed that the unique collection of amber had burned down, he soon died. The commission formed at the same time established that the Amber Room had not burned down, but the search for it did not lead to anything.
For 3 years, the investigation of the loss was carried out by British journalists Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy. They supported the version that the room did burn down during a fire in the Koenigsberg castle. And her disappearance was called a Soviet hoax, the purpose of which was to have a legal justification in order to take millions of dollars worth of art masterpieces out of Germany. As if the abduction by the Germans justified the refusal of the Soviet Union to return the valuables taken out of Germany. So the Amber Room continued and continues to be not only a masterpiece of art, but also an object of politics. There are about 10 more versions of the disappearance of the Amber Room, hundreds of books have been written about this and a large number of films and television programs have been shot.
AMBER ROOM AND MYSTICITY
The Amber Room is armed with a lot of mysticism. The fanatical interest of Hitler himself in mystical rarities with mysterious powers is known. The Yantra Room also belongs to them. There is a legend that the Germans attributed it to the strongest magical artifacts, the Nazi mystical organization Ahnenerbe showed great interest in it. There is an opinion that the Nazi mystics even counted that, having remained in Königsberg, this artifact would help return the city to Germany. Be that as it may, one of the threads of the investigation into the loss of an amber rarity leads to a secret laboratory located in Koenigsberg-Kaliningrad and to underground catacombs. Allegedly, the German soldiers who participated in laying the treasure in the cache were killed and walled up with him in order to take the secret with them to the grave. And their ghosts still scare Kaliningraders. Dark magical power is attributed to the Amber Room - it was not for nothing that Bulgakov's Woland recalled how he played chess with Kant. This mystical philosopher was born in Koenigsberg and everything in the city is saturated with a mysterious and gloomy mystery. And the recreated Amber Room is made of lighter and sunnier varieties of amber.
AMBER TRADE AND POLITICS
In ancient times, the active trade in amber, according to many researchers, accelerated the onset of the Bronze Age in the Baltic. For a long time, Phoenician merchants held a monopoly on the amber trade, carefully guarding the secret of the place where they received it. Ancient amber products are found throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. He is mentioned in Homer's Odyssey in the decoration of the rooms of King Menelaus. Traders' travels, both during the time of the Phoenician merchants, and later, along the famous amber trade routes, were very dangerous.
At the beginning of the 13th century, the Baltic fell into the zone of interests of the crusaders. In 1204, shortly after the emergence of the Teutonic Order, Pope Innocent III found out that Orthodox monks were preaching among the pagans of the Baltics and sent Teutonic knights there. They will remain here for three centuries. First, they conquered Prussia, then the peoples inhabiting the territories of modern Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. True, it did not work out with Russia, as we remember from history, thanks to Alexander Nevsky. The Teutons were actively involved in the amber trade and in the XIV century their state was the only one in all of Europe that did not have debts. The last of the Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order was Albrecht of Brandenburg, who liquidated the order and founded a secular state. Nevertheless, the Brandenburg-Prussian kings had a monopoly on the collection and trade of natural amber for a long time. And then - what we started with. Friedrich in 1703 becomes king of Prussia and discovers huge Teutonic amber reserves in Koenigsberg and orders from it lining for the office and the famous amber interior.
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE AMBER ROOM
Why was it so important to find the Amber Room? After all, even if she were discovered, her condition could be much worse than when Empress Elizabeth remembered her. The room required a complete restoration, not only at the time of the loss - the need for reconstruction was discussed as early as 1913, but due to the high cost, it was never carried out. The Amber Room is an example of baroque art, very fragile and expensive. Of course, it has great value as a cultural heritage. But the main value of the Amber Room lies in its history - its legendary character makes it a special rarity.
The USSR demanded compensation in 1978 after the hope of finding it was lost. A few decades earlier, the question of the bourgeois heritage might not have arisen at all, but by the 70s, the attitude towards art and historical values in the country had changed. Sponsors appeared ready to invest millions of dollars in reconstruction. It took 25 years and 6 tons of amber to recreate the Amber Room. In May 2003, the recreated room was opened. The applied technologies were discussed for a long time - isn't there too much pressed amber used in it? A little earlier, in 2000, a type-setting chest of drawers and a Florentine mosaic "Touch and Smell" discovered in Germany, which were part of the original decoration of the Amber Room, were returned to Russia. Mosaics, a mirror and a casket that were part of the Amber Room are now kept in the Hermitage.
AFTERWORD ABOUT RUSSIAN AMBER
One of the most famous historical amber deposits is located in Russia - more precisely, in the Kaliningrad region, not far from the former Koenigsberg. Kaliningrad amber was used to recreate the Amber Room, as well as to create the original. After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union insisted that Koenigsberg, along with the famous amber region of the Baltic, would be annexed to its territory. But again, it was not amber that played the main role in this. In this place, the Baltic does not freeze in winter, which makes it possible to have a permanent naval base. Amber constantly goes to Russia in the appendage, she never really aspired to it.
The village in which the well-known amber extraction and processing plant was located is called Yantarny (Palmniken-Kraxtepellen). On the former Sambian peninsula, layers of amber-bearing clay lie at a depth of 15 meters, so here you can mine amber in a quarry. There are 10 kg of amber per one cubic meter of earth. Directly across from the Amber Village across the Gdansk Bay is Gdansk (formerly Danzig), another historical and geographical name associated with amber.
After the war, prisoners worked in the village of Yuzhny at the amber deposit - there were 2 camps near Kaliningrad, male and female. The men worked in the extraction of stone, the women in the processing. The conditions here were mild, the contingent was the intelligentsia. Nevertheless, after the amnesty, all the prisoners left these places. In Soviet times, the plant, opened in 1947, worked successfully, extracting up to 600 tons of amber per year. From time to time diplomatic gifts were even ordered here. For example, before Khrushchev's visit to India, an amber necklace for Indira Gandhi was made here.
Another amber mining site near Kaliningrad is connected with a tragic history - this is the Anna mine. Now the extraction of amber is abandoned here. The shaft is cut right into the rock above the beach. On January 30, 1945, in connection with the approach of the Allied troops, the head of the Stutthof concentration camp received an order to destroy evidence of the existence of the camp. 7 thousand prisoners were driven to the adit, intending to flood it along with the people. The director of the mine flatly refused to do this and people were lined up on the seashore in columns of 50 people and shot. Of the 7 thousand, 12 people were able to survive. Near the adit there is a monument to the memory of the victims of several stones with a simple tablet. There is such a beach on the Baltic Sea near Kaliningrad ...
Once upon a time, spears were broken for the possession of this piece of land, and more than one fortune has been built on the amber trade since the time of the Phoenicians. However, the struggle for amber did not stop in recent years, moving into the black market for a long time. For a long time, the plant in the village of Yuzhny was in disrepair, and in 2000 it was even declared bankrupt. The plant was reopened in 2011. Of course, the history of amber, including Kaliningrad amber, did not end there. Spears are still broken, its modern history with gang wars and smugglers makes us remember the amber wars of the past.
The Amber Room is of great value, not only for Russia, but is considered a masterpiece of world jewelry art.
After the loss of the Amber Room during World War II, many scientists searched for it, but there were even more secrets than at the beginning of the search.
Let us remind you. The Amber Cabinet itself was conceived by the talented German sculptor and architect Andres Schlüter, commissioned by the Prussian monarch Frederick I. The king decided to surpass the luxury of Versailles and planned to decorate his study and the gallery of his country residence in Potsdam with amber. Work on the creation of the Amber Cabinet was completed in 1709. But there was an accident: poorly fixed amber panels suddenly collapsed. In anger, the king expelled A. Schluter from the country. During the life of Frederick I, work on the amber gallery and study was never completed. His successor Wilhelm I, who condemned his father's love of luxury, ordered the work to stop. But the already finished fragments were real masterpieces of jewelry: panels of amazing beauty with unique ornaments, flower garlands made from numerous tastefully selected pieces of solar stone, paintings and coats of arms, in the manufacture of which amber of different shades was used. The uniqueness of the work of German masters is that they used amber for the first time to create paintings - earlier this stone was used only in the manufacture of jewelry, caskets, furniture inlay. Amber panels consisted of thousands of polished plates: radiant and transparent, they created an indescribable effect of sunlight.
A few years later, Wilhelm I exchanged this amber treasure for 55 Russian soldiers, whose height was more than two meters. So the amber room ended up in Russia, in the treasury of the Russian Tsar Peter I. These values \u200b\u200bare not interested in the Russian monarch, so for a long time they were in the back rooms of the Summer Palace. Only in 1743, the daughter of Peter I, Elizaveta Petrovna, decided to decorate the chambers of the Winter Palace with the Amber Cabinet.
The ingenious architect Bartholomew Rastrelli was instructed to create an office of solar stone. In the back room there were panels with an area of about 55 square meters, but the planned Amber Cabinet was six times larger than the cabinet of Frederick I. Rastrelli brilliantly coped with this problem: he used gilded wood carvings, jasper and agate paintings for additional decoration, mirrors, golden sconces. The room turned out to be of amazing and exquisite beauty.
For 200 years, the Amber Room has not undergone any alterations. In September 1941, the remaining guards of Tsarskoye Selo were withdrawn to the Pulkovo Heights. Nobody dismantled the Amber Room, so it was not possible to take it out in time.
Only after the blockade of Leningrad was lifted was it possible to calculate the irretrievable losses of the city's treasures. The Nazis robbed the Catherine Palace to the bone. Everything was taken out: from silk wallpapers and parquet floors to all doors. The Amber Room was also taken out by the Nazis at the end of 1941 to Koenigsberg, the capital of East Prussia. Since then, traces of her have been lost.
There are many versions of where the Amber Room can be located. Each version has its opponents and supporters. And although a lot of documents have been found that accompany any search, the world-famous masterpiece has not been found. It seems that someone very powerful does not want this secret to be revealed. Many argue that as soon as the research approaches some result point, something happens: either documents suddenly disappear, or an important witness dies, etc. If this is true, then the search for the Amber Room could go on forever.
But let's focus on the most interesting versions. Joseph Stalin was never particularly interested in the Amber Room, doing more important state affairs. Once, after signing a "non-aggression pact" with Germany in 1939, Stalin was talking to Count Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy. The representative of culture was asked a specific question - how can the emerging “fragile friendship” with Germany be strengthened? Since A. Tolstoy lived in Pushkin for a long time, he offered to give the Germans as a gift ... the Amber Room. Stalin did not expect such a proposal and was outraged. But the count explained that supposedly this room was in a deplorable state, it would take a lot of money for restoration, and even more so, it was once presented to the Russians by the monarch Frederick I and nothing bad would happen if this masterpiece returned to Germany. But Stalin resolved this issue in his own way: a talented stone carver Anatoly Osipovich Baranovsky was found, he was provided with all the necessary materials. The restorer was required to make a copy of the Amber Room. Baranovsky warned the leader of all peoples that it was impossible to repeat this masterpiece of jewelry art in such a short time, as Stalin wanted. But this did not bother Stalin, he urgently needed to “strengthen his friendship” with Hitler.
Together with his students, Baranovsky worked on a government order day and night. And A. Tolstoy was appointed to oversee the work. The work was greatly hindered by numerous high officials who, having learned about the talented master, annoyed him with requests to make pendants, bracelets, brooches and other amber jewelry to order. After Stalin's intervention, the flow of petitioners immediately stopped. Baranovsky suffered a heart attack, but continued to work. Two copies of the Amber Room were created: a copy was made by the master himself, and his students were engaged in the layout of the room on a scale of 1: 1. Two years later, both copies of the Amber Room were ready! Of course, upon closer examination, the copy turned out to be not entirely accurate: other color ratios, instead of mirror pilasters, pilasters were made of amber, etc.
Two days before the start of the war, the original Amber Room was replaced with a copy of Baranovsky. Then it was carefully photographed, dismantled and sent for storage in the basement of the Catherine Palace. But the model, which was created by the master's students, was assembled in the hall where the original Amber Room was previously located. But they didn’t have time to give the Germans a gift - in the early morning of June 22, the Germans bombed Soviet cities.
So, there were three Amber Rooms in Pushkino: the original, a copy of Baranovsky and a model installed in the hall of the palace. Only Alexei Tolstoy and the director of the Pavlovsk Palace Museum knew that the carefully packed original was sent to Moscow on July 6, 1941. This cargo was accompanied by two students of Baranovsky. But for a long time nothing was known about the fate of these people.
It looks very strange that Alexei Tolstoy did not say anything about this transportation of the Amber Room when, after the war, a commission was created to search for it, although he was a member of this commission.
One of the researchers who devoted himself to the search for the Amber Room, Alexander Kuchumov, later said bitterly: “Even if she is alive, then there is no point in looking for her!”
It can only be considered a miracle that in the eighties of the last century one of Baranovsky's students, Andrei Nikolaevich Vorobyov, was found. It was he who allegedly accompanied the transportation of the original Amber Room in 1941. From his story it follows that in Moscow the original of the Amber Room was placed in the storerooms of the Tretyakov Gallery. At that time, the entire staff of this gallery had already been sent beyond the Urals, and the premises of the Tretyakov Gallery were at the complete disposal of the NKVD. In one of the rooms of the gallery, the Amber Room was installed - it was carefully photographed and measured. Stalin, it seems, also came to look at this masterpiece of jewelry art.
At the same time, an event that took place in December 1994 at a London antiques auction became a sensation. There was put up for auction a gem with the image of a Roman soldier, which, according to experts, was part of the original Amber Room. Another part of the lost masterpiece appeared in 1997. The Potsdam police discovered four mosaic paintings from the Amber Room. The authenticity of the find was confirmed by the staff of the Tsarskoye Selo Museum. In the same place in Germany, two chests of drawers were found, which were part of the Amber Room.
Perhaps these facts confirm the version that the original of the Amber Room was nevertheless taken out by the Nazis during the robbery of St. Petersburg museums during the Second World War.
An active search for the Amber Room began in 1949, after Molotov, calling the secretary of the Kaliningrad regional committee, asked: "Comrade Stalin is interested in where the Amber Room is?" Almost all special services and museum specialists were involved in the search. The search engines found out that it was in Koenigsberg that the Germans brought all the art objects looted in European countries, since the Nazis considered it the most peaceful place: hostilities were far away, American and British bombers did not reach there. Only in the middle of 1944 the city was bombed by the Americans. As a result of the raid, fires broke out in the city, and the castle was also damaged, where, presumably, the Amber Room could be located.
Also, to store valuables, the Germans built a large number of bunkers. Perhaps the Amber Room was located in one of these many underground vaults. So, from the protocols of interrogation of SD employees, whose duties included the protection of valuables, it turned out that they were stacking boxes with especially valuable exhibits in one of the bunkers. Today, many Nazi bunkers have already been explored, they really found weapons, money, works of art there, but no traces of the Amber Room were found.
There is also a certain “sea version”, the essence of which is as follows: the Amber Room was loaded onto the Welhelm Gustloff transport for transportation to the Zemlansky Peninsula, but the ship was sunk by a Russian submarine. So far, this transport has not been raised from the depths of the sea, but preparatory work is already underway.
Beginning in 1979, the restoration of the famous Amber Room began in St. Petersburg. It was planned to open it to the public for the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the city. The restorers needed more than 6 tons of amber and 7.754 million dollars and another $3.5 million were transferred to the restoration fund by the German company Ruhrgas AG.
Today, the restored Amber Room can be seen in the Tsarkoselsky Museum. It is the pearl of the Catherine Palace and, undoubtedly, one of the wonders of the world.
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The history of Russia knows three mysteries connected with the disappearance of domestic works of art.
So, in the 16th century, the library of Ivan the Terrible, a unique collection of Russian and foreign literature, disappeared without a trace. In 1812, leaving the capital of the Russian Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte seized the "Moscow booty", mainly church items stolen from the Kremlin churches. And in 1941, the Germans removed the Amber Room from the Catherine Palace. Perhaps the most hypotheses and conjectures were generated by what could happen to her after 1945.
Today, the vast majority of literate people know about the existence of the Amber Room from the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo. However, few of the human hands who stood at the origins of the birth of this miracle could have imagined that the Amber Room was destined for a fantastically incredible fate of being in the center of attention of many generations for three centuries.
Hundreds of books, thousands of articles and dozens of films have been written about the Amber Room. The Amber Room itself has not yet been found, which, you see, brings the charm of an unsolved mystery into our history. Of course, the result is always interesting, but the process of investigation is even more exciting.
Looking for writers, journalists, directors, historians, search engines. Gradually, the problem of the Amber Room became multifaceted: politicians, diplomats, heads of government and presidents, officials, police officers, customs officers, intelligence officers, soothsayers and clairvoyants and, of course, criminal elements joined the search.
How it all began
And everything started great. 300 years ago, King Frederick of Prussia competed in vain with his French counterpart Louis XIV, known as the Sun King. And in order to outdo him, he ordered to make an Amber Cabinet for the palace in Berlin.
And suddenly Frederick I, the King of Prussia, had an idea - to turn amber from a material for small household items into an interior, into architecture, a completely different area.
In 1709, the Amber Cabinet was solemnly opened, and two weeks later the entire structure collapsed. Some of the mirrors and panels were destroyed, and the survivors were sent to the Zeikhgauz.
Frederick I died four years later. His son Frederick William I, who was little interested in the beauty of the palace, came to the throne, and he spent all his savings on the royal guard. In addition, he was extremely stingy and in 1716, when Peter I unexpectedly came to Berlin, Friedrich-Wilhelm thought painfully: what would he give to the powerful Russian Tsar. The solution was found. In the pantry lay useless amber paintings. Peter I had already seen them before, when he came to Wilhelm's father, and was amazed by the amber curiosity. On January 13, 1717, the cargo with the Amber Room arrived in St. Petersburg, about which there is a corresponding document.
Friedrich Wilhelm I 1743. The daughter of Peter I, Elizaveta Petrovna, issues a decree, which states that “the Amber Cabinet for cleaning the chambers in the Winter House, in which I, Imperial Majesty, deign to live, accept and equip.” Elizaveta Petrovna constantly thought about “the greatness of our imperial dignity” and surrounded herself with luxury: new palaces, not embarrassed to appear before the public in the form of the mythical Flora, and then decided that she needed a country palace in Tsarskoye Selo.
To a large extent, the credit for the creation of the amber miracle belongs to Count Bartolomeo Rastrelli.
Interestingly, Rastrelli had a much larger room than Friedrich's office, and he first introduced the motif of mirrored pilasters. It seemed that the whole hall was decorated with amber. An important decorative detail of the Amber Cabinet was the mosaics that Elizaveta Petrovna received as a gift. But the trouble is that there were only three frames, and the fourth frame was missing. Frederick the Great, having learned about this, immediately ordered the frame to the Danzig masters and solemnly presented it to Elizabeth Petrovna with the appropriate verses, which noted the military merits of Elizabeth Petrovna. The combat exploits were clearly exaggerated. Elizaveta Petrovna was moved and paid the master Zur 500 rubles for his efforts.
Since then, for 200 years, the Amber Room has remained the way Rastrelli made it.
Elizabeth Petrovna. The further fate of the Amber Room
But the further fate of the masterpiece was sad. In May 1820, the room was nearly destroyed by a fire, after which Thurau and Roggenburg undertook its restoration; in 1830 and 1897 it was restored again.
Under Soviet rule, Tsarskoye Selo was renamed the city of Pushkin, and the Catherine Palace became a museum. Until the beginning of the war, repeated unsuccessful attempts at restoration were made. The room was in a deplorable state, when trying to start dismantling, pieces of amber crumbled, and the wooden base cracked and deformed.
On September 17, 1941, at four o'clock in the afternoon, German troops entered Pushkin. The Catherine Palace was destroyed and plundered. The Amber Room was saved from complete destruction only by the arrival of those responsible for replenishing the Reich museums - Captain Poensgen and Count Solms-Laubach. The room was dismantled, packed and sent on 27 trucks to the Severnaya station, from where it was transported by rail to Koenigsberg ...
A completely logical question arises: why was the room not evacuated to the rear from June 22 to September 17, 1941?
32 thousand items from the exposition of the Catherine Palace still managed to be taken to the rear, and for some reason the most expensive exhibit was left. After all, the museum staff had almost three months to dismantle and evacuate, while seven German soldiers were able to dismantle it in just 36 hours. There are a number of circumstances due to which a unique work of art remained in the Catherine Palace.
Larisa Bardovskaya (deputy director of the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Reserve):
“And the Amber Room is a special case because it crumbled. And when they began to dismantle it, the mosaics began to crumble.
Photo: Pavel Markin I'm ntar - really quite a fragile material. But the room was constantly restored. Its first repair took place in the middle of the 18th century and cost the imperial treasury 75,977 rubles - a huge amount of money for those times, they could buy several estates. All further restorations also resulted in a round sum. Therefore, it is hard to believe that the amber panels have worn out so seriously.
The eighth wonder of the world - this is how the Amber Room is called all over the world. She stood in Russia for 224 years. And, no doubt, it would have stood to this day, if not for the war, which in September 1941 ruined the Catherine Palace.
So why did the Soviet authorities not have enough for three whole months to save the unique relic? And six German soldiers, under the leadership of a non-commissioned officer, dismantled the Amber Room in 36 hours, put the panels in boxes and calmly sent it all to Königsberg.
Due to the offensive Soviet military doctrine, evacuation plans were in the very last place and were not considered as a possible scenario.
One way or another, the Amber Room went to Koenigsberg, a city she had already visited and where a much more dramatic page of her fate began. Renamed by the Nazis into the "property of the German nation", the Amber Room was kept in Koenigsberg until 1944, until the Soviet troops entered East Prussia.
Soviet unit in a street fight in Koenigsberg. On August 28, 1944, during a British air raid, the royal castle, where the dismantled and packed Amber Room was stored in the cellars, was completely burned.
After the capture of Koenigsberg, the leadership of the commission for the export of valuables was entrusted to Professor Alexander Bryusov, an art critic and historian - the brother of the famous poet Valery Bryusov. He was instructed to find the stolen Soviet valuables hidden in Königsberg. The professor was an archaeologist, didn't know where to start and had no idea what the Amber Room looked like.
The main character of the drama, Dr. Alfred Rode, was not at all interested in Bryusov until Rode himself appeared to him. But not to report on the Amber Room, but to get a job and get ration cards. And only after some time, Rode shows Bryusov a bunker, where some of the stolen goods turned out to be. And about the Amber Room, Rode said that it burned down during the raid, and showed Bryusov a pile of charred remains.
The professor readily believed and drew up an act stating that the Amber Room had burned down. Dr. Rode immediately disappeared somewhere, and one day Professor Bryusov was walking around the evening city and saw Rode, who was burning some papers. However, Bryusov, who was in no hurry to go anywhere, did not immediately read the documents, and in vain ... It turned out to be Dr. Rode's correspondence with the Fuhrer himself.
Orders came three times demanding that the Amber Room be delivered to Berlin, but Dr. Rode found more and more reasons to keep the room in Königsberg. And now, at the end of 1944, he answers Hitler:
1. Railroads are cut in red;
2. We do not risk sending by sea, it is actively controlled by the enemy;
3. Red aircraft are constantly hanging in the air.
I give a state guarantee that the Amber Room is stored in a fairly safe place - in the third tier of the bunker, the entrance is disguised.
Heil Hitler!
Rode, director.
It remains to find out what kind of bunker in question. They began to look for Rode and found only a certificate stating that Rode and his wife died in December 1945 from dysentery in this hospital.
In 1946, Anatoly Kuchumov, the one who was responsible for the evacuation of the Tsarskoe Selo Museum, learns that Professor Bryusov considers the Amber Room burned down, and immediately goes to Kaliningrad together with art critic Stanislav Tronchinsky. Arriving, they explored the hall of the Royal Palace, where the remains of the Amber Room were allegedly found.
The ruins of the royal castle in Königsberg, where in 1944 the missing Amber Room was exhibited for the last time. Snapshot 1946 Photo: RIA Novosti Immediately, three mosaics were found that actually went on fire. It is strange that Professor Bryusov did not notice them. When you try to pick it up, the mosaics crumbled, because the stone burned out. Kuchumov did not find any other traces of the burnt Amber Room - pieces of melted mirrors and amber would certainly remain. The version of the death of the Amber Room in the fire was not confirmed, which was later recognized by Professor Bryusov.
The chain of disappearances of all the defendants
Simultaneously with the search for the Amber Room, one after another, accidents occur with persons involved in the search for the Amber Room.
The director of the Prussian Museum, Dr. Alfred Rode, the greatest connoisseur of museum rarities, suddenly died with his wife, Elsa Rode, from "bloody dysentery." During the opening of their graves in the cemetery of St. Louise, the bodies were not found ... Lieutenant Colonel Paul Encke, a major official of the Ministry of the Interior of the GDR, died under unclear circumstances in Berlin ... Major Ivan Kuritsa, who was on his way to meet with an important witness, died on the way: a wire stretched across the road he cut off his head. The witness, with whom he was never able to meet, was strangled ...
These and many other deaths formed a mysterious chain of murders in the search for a unique masterpiece. Until now, disputes have not subsided about where the Amber Room disappeared, whether it burned down during the bombing of British aircraft on the night of August 27-28, 1944, or is still stored in one of the German bunkers.
Amber room before the war Curious fact
One of Mr. Rode's school friends met him the day after the bombing of Königsberg. He was pale, came shortly before her, and she asked: “But what about the Amber Room?”. His answer: "It's all over, it's all over..."
“I was so scared, and he said to me: “I will show it to you.” And he took me to the basement opposite the restaurant. We walked through the ashes, down the stairs. It smelled awful of burning. There was a honey-like mass with pieces of wood sticking out of it.
However, the Amber Room did not burn down during these fires. Rode himself confirms this.
On September 2, 1944, he reports to Berlin that the Amber Room remained intact, except for six plinth plates.
There are five main versions of the disappearance of the Amber Room.
First version. Cache in the Kaliningrad region. Started by numerous lone treasure hunters, representatives of various organizations, the search was officially stopped only in 1984. During the search, more than 250 alleged places of its location were investigated, but it was not found in any of them. During numerous excavations, the version about the death of the room during the bombardment in August 1944 was also not confirmed.
Second version. The cabinet was evacuated from East Prussia and taken to Germany, and from there to South America. There are many places where it could be.
Third version. Boxes with priceless cargo were taken to West Prussia and buried in what is now Poland. One of the Polish scientists, Jan Goh, has eyewitness accounts and historical documents that clearly show that the Amber Room was hidden by the Nazis on the territory of the Dargobondz settlement.
Fourth version. The masterpiece was taken apart, taken to the central lands of the Third Reich and safely hidden in secret depositories. Perhaps, in the future, the room was transferred with secret archives to representatives of the US Army.
Fifth version. There is an assumption that the room may be located on the territory of the former USSR, where it was taken after the capture of the Prussian fortress. But this version is the least plausible, since the Soviet Union spent huge amounts of money on the search and restoration of the Amber Room.
A little over a decade ago, an updated copy of the Amber Room took its place of honor in Tsarskoe Selo. The official opening took place on May 31, 2003, during the celebration of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg. The ceremony was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
So, the mystery of the original Amber Room has remained unsolved, and anyone can admire its copy again. However, the controversy surrounding the mysterious disappearance of a unique masterpiece does not subside, and the search continues to this day...
Well, most recently, Channel One showed a film - an investigation in two parts - about the disappearance of the Amber Room. The most serious work was done, but the ending turned out to be painfully predictable:
“To answer the question: “Where are these storages?” We couldn't do it on our own. Apparently, our search has reached the point where it needs to be continued at the state level.
We now know the whole path of the Amber Room. For some reason we can't show it to you. True, experts say that the copy is much better than the original, although this does not mean at all that justice should not be restored!”
Tsarskoye Selo, St. Petersburg 
The Russian name for amber comes from the Lithuanian word "gintaras", which literally means "protection from diseases". In ancient Rus', wealthy people put threads studded with amber on nannies and wet nurses to protect their child from the evil eye. In Germany, up until the Second World War, amber beads were tied around the neck of small children so that they could grow strong and healthy teeth painlessly. It is also believed that amber gives its owner an impulse for creativity, strengthens physical strength, faith, maintains optimism and cheerfulness. Perhaps the Amber Room will turn out to be a panacea for all problems that have not been resolved in the past or will arise in the future, in the relationship between Germany and Russia.
Many have tried to unravel the mystery of the disappearance of the Amber Room. Those who approached the solution too closely died tragically.
The French poet Theophile Gauthier, who visited Russia in the middle of the 19th century, did not hide his delight when describing the Amber Room: “The eye, not accustomed to seeing amber in such quantity, is captured and blinded by the richness and warmth of tones that run through the entire gamut - from flaming topaz to light lemon ... when the sun illuminates the walls and penetrates with its rays into the transparent veins of amber. What can I say, a unique gift was presented to Peter I by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm. But, centuries later, the rulers of the "Third Reich" will call his generous gift "a mistake that needs to be corrected."
1940, Germany is full of hopes for an early redivision of the world. Propaganda Minister Goebbels ordered art historians to prepare a list of German cultural property that turned out to be foreigners. The Amber Room was also included in the list. Having occupied the city of Pushkin in the autumn of 1941, the Nazis began "work on the mistakes": they dismantled the Amber Room, which the Soviet museum workers did not have time to evacuate, and took it to Königsberg. The stolen amber panels were placed in one of the halls of the Royal Castle. But the Nazis did not admire their trophy for long: in August 1944, after an English air raid, a strong fire broke out in the castle. The Amber Room was again dismantled, the panels were packed in boxes and… securely hidden. The last documentary evidence is a letter from the director of the city museum of art Alfred Rode to his leadership in Berlin, dated September 2, 1944: “Despite the complete destruction of the Königsberg Castle ... The Amber Room, with the exception of six basement elements, is safe and sound.” That's all we know for sure.
The search for the amber treasure began immediately after the victory. In the cellars and dungeons of Königsberg, Soviet soldiers and museum workers managed to find a lot of valuables stolen by the Nazis, but no traces of the Amber Room were found. They counted on the assistance of Alfred Rohde, but he was obscure: he referred to shell shock, bad memory, etc. It seemed that the professor was mortally frightened by someone. At the end of 1945, Rode and his wife disappeared. There were rumors that they were killed by those who did not want to return the Amber Room to the Soviet Union. This was only the first link in a chain of mysterious deaths.
In 1945, in Königsberg, State Security Major Ivan Kuritsa found out about a man who could point out the cache of treasures in the Amber Room. Jumping on the motorcycle, the officer hurried to meet the witness. But someone pulled a wire across the road, and the motorcyclist's head was cut off. And the one to whom the major was in a hurry was found strangled at home.
German farmer Georg Stein was called the "Indiana Jones of the Amber Room", and he searched for her for over 20 years. Repeatedly Stein received threatening letters with a warning to stop the search. In 1987, sensational documents were in his hands, he decided to call a press conference and publish the information received. In a letter to a friend, Stein wrote: "It makes no sense for us to look for the Amber Room in Europe, it has been in America for a long time." But the press conference did not take place. German newspapers reported: Stein committed suicide by cutting open his stomach with a kitchen knife. Few people believed the official version of suicide.
Just three weeks after this tragedy, the German writer Paul Encke, author of the acclaimed book Report on the Amber Room, dies. A healthy 52-year-old man died suddenly from inflammation of the pancreas.
At the end of 1992, the first deputy head of the GRU of Russia, Colonel-General Yuri Gusev, gave several interviews about the fate of the Amber Room. Among other things, he said that a certain person had arrived from London to Moscow with important documents. To a direct question from a journalist, the general answered evasively: “Let's say I know where the Amber Room and other valuables are. But the forces hiding this secret are such that, if I tell you about it, in a week neither you nor even me will be alive. Soon General Gusev died in a car accident. The corpse of an Englishman was found in a Moscow hotel room, and the documents he brought disappeared ... To paraphrase the operatic Mephistopheles, people die for amber.
There are many versions about the fate of the precious room: it died during the bombing, was hidden in a dungeon, fell into the hands of the Americans and ended up in the United States, was taken out by the Nazis on a ship or submarine and is located somewhere in South America ... Scientists assured that the fragile amber ornament after so many upheavals had long been turned to dust. But on December 13, 1994, an amber gem depicting the head of a Roman warrior was sold at the Christie's London auction. The verdict of the experts left no doubt: this is a genuine element of the decor of the Amber Room. Accident? But three years later, German police discovered in Potsdam an amber-encrusted chest of drawers and one of the four Florentine mosaics that adorned the amber office of the Catherine Palace. These things also turned out to be genuine, on April 29, 2000, Germany returned them to Russia.
The return of valuables gave Russian restorers a unique opportunity to compare the original with their copy. Indeed, by that time, the titanic work to restore the lost masterpiece had been going on for almost 20 years. The restorers had to make about half a million decorative details using the technique of the 18th century masters. Fortunately, photographs of the Amber Room, taken shortly before the war, have been preserved, and they served as models for the restorers. And then the real fragments appeared: how accurate is the work of the restorers? The “hit” turned out to be one hundred percent: the details of the originals and copies coincided to the smallest detail. Russian restorers can rightfully be proud of their work.
In 2003, for the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg, the Amber Room was completely restored. She was returned to her original place - to the Catherine Palace. Hundreds of thousands of tourists annually come to admire the amber miracle. According to experts, the main difference between the new room and the old one is the color. By 1941, the amber of the original had faded greatly from time to time, and the decorations of the recreated room shimmer with many bright, golden, joyful hues.
After the successful reconstruction, the "old" Amber Room began to be forgotten. Most likely, it is lost to us forever. Perhaps it is for the best: too many people died because of her, too much blood was shed on the tarnished amber.
about the discovery of the Amber Room - this time it was “found” in Germany by a team of 73-year-old homeopath, 71-year-old georadar specialist Peter Lohr and 67-year-old, whose specialty is simply designated in the press as “scientist”. The German publication was the first to report the find. Bild .
According to the group, the lost Amber Room is hidden in the Prince's Cave near Dresden.
They were informed about the location of the room back in 2001 by a “reliable source”. Enthusiasts claim that the cave was used by the Nazis, but there is no mention of it in the documents, since they were erased.
After scanning the Prince's Cave with GPR, the researchers found cavities in it. On these grounds, they concluded that the Amber Room could be stored there.
“The shelter is located above the railway line, where the train from Koenigsberg was stopped in April 1945,” says Lohr.
Koenigsberg, now Kaliningrad, was formerly the capital of East Prussia, where the Amber Room was once kept.
Lohr also believes that a treasure is hidden in the cave, which belonged to the last monarch of the German Empire that collapsed in 1918, Wilhelm II, who fled to the Netherlands after the defeat in World War II.
“We found traces of steel cables in the trees that were used to lower the boxes into the cave. Measurements have shown that there is a system of hidden tunnels under the cave,” says Eckardt.
A year earlier, the Amber Room by Polish researchers. In their opinion, it may be located on the territory of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, located in northern Poland.
The Poles said that for a long time they studied the area with the help of georadar and found out that there was a mysterious walled-up room underground. This, according to scientists, is the famous Amber Room.
In 2010, Kaliningrad local historians and physicists in the city center under the bunker of the last commandant of Koenigsberg, General Otto von Lyash, a large dungeon.
During the work, the researchers stumbled upon a two-meter brick wall and stumbled upon a layer of rubber 20 cm thick. When they drilled it too, the probe rested on the metal - according to scientists, there were iron boxes there.
However, the regional service for the state protection of cultural heritage objects to extend the research group permission to work.
Although there was no direct ban, local historians were afraid that in the event of a force majeure situation, all the blame would fall on them.
And even earlier, in 2007, a group of German cavers suggested that the Amber Room under the Pregolya River - they had drawings in their hands, according to which there was a tunnel there. The 14th-century dungeon, which was out of order, according to them, was completed in the late 1930s - early 1940s of the 20th century and stretched from the Order Royal Castle of Koenigsberg (now defunct) to Pregola, turning into a concrete sleeve. The tunnel leads to the Central Island to the Cathedral of the XIV century, near the walls of which is the grave of the philosopher Immanuel Kant.
After examining the territory, cavers came to the conclusion that the entrance to the tunnel was blown up, most likely by the Nazis, in order to exclude the Soviet authorities from access to wealth.
The Germans were going to turn to their government so that it, in turn, began to negotiate with the Russian side on the technical side of the matter.
For Kaliningrad historians, the search for the Amber Room is a matter of honor, since everyone in the city has tried to find it, and since 1945.
The Amber Room is a famous masterpiece of art of the 18th century, which disappeared without a trace during the Second World War. The Amber Room was created by German craftsmen for the Prussian King Frederick I, and then presented to Peter I. It was considered the pearl of the summer residence of Russian emperors in Tsarskoye Selo.
