The latest information on the search for the Amber Room. Where is the real amber room? Quest for the Amber Room

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.

The disappearance of the Amber Room is perhaps one of the main mysteries of the 20th century. It's no secret that the Amber Room, exhibited today in the Catherine Palace, is only a copy, although it is as close as possible to the original. But the fate of the real Amber Room, the one that was presented to the Russian Emperor Peter I, is shrouded in mystery. Since she was kidnapped during World War II and taken outside of Russia, almost nothing has been known about her fate.

A copy of the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace

Initially, the amber masterpiece was made in 1709 for the Prussian King Frederick I, but then his son presented this cabinet to the Russian Emperor Peter I. In 1717, the amber panels were delivered to Russia and installed in one of the halls in the Summer Garden of St. Petersburg.

Later, the daughter of Peter I, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, decided to transform the Amber Cabinet, making it larger and more luxurious. Under the leadership of F. B. Rastrelli, mirrors, mosaic panels and other decorative elements appeared in the decoration of the amber cabinet. As a result of the reconstruction, the office was called the "Amber Room", as it significantly increased in size and was supplemented with luxurious details. Since the end of the 18th century, the Amber Room was located in the summer residence of Russian emperors - in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo (the modern city of Pushkin).

Photo of the original Amber Room in the Catherine Palace, 1911

As a result of the invasion of the Nazi troops, the Catherine Palace ended up in the occupied territories. Today it is difficult to say why the Amber Room was not taken out for evacuation, as was done, for example, with other masterpieces of the Catherine Palace. According to one version, when the museum staff began to dismantle the room, the fragile amber panels began to crumble, so it was decided to leave it in place, having previously protected it from the impact of the bombing.

According to the surviving evidence, after the capture of the Catherine Palace by the Nazis, the Amber Room was dismantled by German soldiers in just 36 hours and taken to Königsberg (the modern Russian city of Kaliningrad). From 1942 to 1944, the Amber Room was exhibited at the Royal Castle in Königsberg. As the researchers note, the room where the "property of the German nation" was demonstrated, as the Amber Room began to be called, was smaller than the hall in which it was installed earlier. For this reason, some of the panels were already stored separately. In 1944, when the aviation of the allied forces launched air attacks on the city, the Amber Room was again dismantled, and it was stored in the cellars of the castle. During the storming of the city by Soviet troops, the Amber Room disappeared, and traces of it were lost forever.

Fragment of the Amber Room

As it turned out later, the disappearance of part of the Amber Room occurred during its removal by the German army from Russia. One of the German officers who took part in the sacking of the Catherine Palace took part of the amber masterpiece with him, which was quite expected in wartime conditions. One of the Florentine mosaics was unexpectedly discovered in 1997 when they tried to sell it. As a result of lengthy proceedings, the mosaic ended up in the property of the city of Bremen, which handed it over to the Tsarskoe Selo museum along with the amber chest of drawers.

Researchers express several versions about the location of the Amber Room. It could have burned down during the bombing of Königsberg (this version was considered a priority for a long time after the transfer of Königsberg to the Soviet state), or it could have been taken to Germany, where its traces in the conditions of the retreat of the German army and the confusion of the last months of the war cannot be traced.

Fragment of the restored Amber Room

The correspondence of the director of the Prussian Museum, where the “property of the German nation”, Dr. Alfred Rohde, with Adolf Hitler, fell into the hands of the researchers. At the end of 1944, the Führer demanded that the Amber Room be delivered to Berlin, to which Dr. Rode replied that the panels were hidden in a secure bunker, and shipping might not be safe. But extensive searches on the territory of Kaliningrad and the entire region did not yield any results. Based on the results of numerous not only Soviet, but also international investigations into the search for the Amber Room, the conclusion arises that the room can be located anywhere - from secret burials in Europe to private collections of art lovers in the United States.

In 2003, work was completed on creating an exact copy of the Amber Room, which can be admired in the Catherine Palace. But a copy is a copy, and the fate of the original Amber Room still haunts the minds of historians, criminologists, journalists, politicians and public figures. This detective story haunts more than one generation of researchers. Despite the fact that fragments of a genuine amber masterpiece periodically emerge in different parts of the world, its fate is still unknown.

Museum visitors in the restored Amber Room

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.

Recall. 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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Extraordinarily interesting and beautiful is the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace. It is even quite deservedly called a wonder of the world. The appearance of this unique room is covered with myths and legends. And the disappearance of this masterpiece in wartime still excites the imagination. Fortunately, the Amber Room still managed to be restored. In this article, we will tell you in detail about its history, as well as where the Catherine Palace, the Amber Room are located. Ticket prices and museum opening hours can also be found in this article.

Prussian period

The Prussian kings Electors of Brandenburg (and Prussia was considered the famous center of the amber trade in Europe) since 1618, as gifts to other princes, they began to traditionally give amber, this is the "gold" of the Baltic Sea, as it was called. Thanks to this, the art of processing this stone developed rapidly, and the Amber Room became one of its peaks. It was created during the heyday of Prussian and German art in general, namely at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Elector Frederick III (reigned 1657-1713) in 1701 undertook the reconstruction of his capital and, in particular, the royal residence - a whole complex of buildings dating back to the 16th-17th centuries. The court architect of the king, I.F. Eozander, made the country estate a real palace, built according to the Versailles model. Today it is known for certain that this architect created the project of the Amber Cabinet. Litzenburg and Oranienburg, two palaces of the King of Prussia, with which the fate of the Amber Room is linked, since 1707 became the place of Eosander's activity. At first, the Amber Room was intended to decorate the Litzenburg Palace. During his lifetime, it was not possible to see this room finished. Work was in 1709 still in full swing. By that time Sophia-Charlotte had died (in 1705). Frederick I decided to stop the project and decorate the gallery in his other palace, Oranienburg, with amber panels. Most likely, the king decided to stop construction in order to preserve the Litzenburg Palace, the residence of his wife, as it was during her lifetime. The walls of the hall, in which it was supposed to install amber panels, were decorated with gold galloon and damask. And today in the Litzenburg Palace you can admire the Red Damask Room. In memory of Queen Sophia Charlotte, this palace became known as Charlottenburg.

Then the king instructed Eozander to enlarge the palace in Oranienburg by adding the Amber Gallery, 30 meters long, which was larger than the original project. However, despite active work, this gallery was not completed during the life of Frederick I, who died in 1713.

Gift to Peter I

The Russian emperor was delighted with the work of Eozander and did not hide his desire to have a similar work of art in his country. Friedrich Wilhelm I, heir to the king (years of life - 1688-1740, reign - from 1713), introduced strict discipline in his country, the purpose of which was practical benefit, and decided to stop such expensive work in his father's palaces. But the undisguised admiration of numerous guests prompted him to install amber panels in an office belonging to the main chambers of the Berlin Royal Castle. This was the only confirmed fact that this masterpiece was in Berlin before being sent to the Russian capital, St. Petersburg.

During the life of Frederick I, Peter I personally examined the panels for the Amber Gallery during his visit to Berlin. In November 1716, during a meeting with his son, which took place in order to conclude an alliance between Prussia and Russia, Friedrich Wilhelm I presented the emperor with expensive gifts, among which was the Amber Cabinet. On January 13, 1717, the Amber Room was delivered to St. Petersburg in 18 boxes, which, in addition to finished panels, contained a large number of previously unused fragments.

There is no evidence of where Tsar Peter I planned to install these panels, so assumptions about their intended use in the interior of the Winter Palace remain groundless.

Amber room during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna

In 1743, the emperor's daughter Elizabeth Petrovna, after entering the kingdom, ordered that a gift be placed in a new residence under construction - the Third Winter Palace. The Italian architect A. Martelli was invited to carry out the work. Under the leadership of another great architect, F. B. Rastrelli, already in 1746, the transformed Amber Cabinet appeared in the Winter Palace. However, some elements for the new interior were missing, so Rastrelli decided to install mirrored pilasters and insert additional panels painted "in amber". In 1745, King Frederick II of Prussia presented the Russian Empress with another amber frame designed by A. Reich, which was decorated with motifs and allegories that glorified the greatness of Elizabeth Petrovna. In 1746, the Amber Room began to be used for official receptions, although it was moved from place to place many times during the repeated reconstructions of the Winter Palace.

Amber Room in the Catherine Palace

12 years later, in June 1755, already in Tsarskoye Selo, by decree of the Empress, the Amber Room began to be created under the leadership of Rastrelli (everyone knows where the Catherine Palace is located today). Thus began a new era of glory for this masterpiece in Russia, which lasted about two hundred years.

The palace hall reserved for her was 96 square meters, which significantly exceeded the size of the previous room. Therefore, the panels were placed in the middle tier on three walls and separated by pilasters with mirrors and gilded wood carvings. Where there was a lack of amber, the walls of the hall were covered with canvas and decorated with amber-like paintings, made by the artist I. I. Velsky. Rastrelli brilliantly coped with his task, reinforcing the interior with beautiful bronze lamps, a picturesque ceiling, gilded carvings, mirrors and parquet made of various precious woods.

The center of the ceiling was decorated with a huge painting by an unknown artist from Venice of the 18th century, depicting Wisdom protecting Youth from the temptations of love.

The middle, central tier consisted of 8 vertical panels, of which four contained mosaics of colored stones, made in Florence in the 1750s, figuratively depicting the five basic senses: Hearing, Sight, Touch, Taste and Smell.

The amber office of the Catherine Palace had a luxurious decoration. It was made up of Chinese porcelain and chests of drawers of Russian work. The Amber Room also kept one of the largest collections of amber products in Europe, and over time, a museum of amber things appeared, where there were chess, caskets and checkers.

Personal items of members of the royal family

From the middle of the 18th century, Tsarskoye Selo, where high-class amber processing craftsmen had appeared by that time, began to receive various objects belonging to members of the royal family from the Chamberlain Storeroom for repairs. The documents indicate that in 1765 more than 70 items made of this stone were brought here for repair, among which were religious objects (crucifixes and crosses), furniture (suppliers, cabinets and cabinets) and household items. A special group of things from the time of Elizabeth are table decorations made in the form of a shell shell with acanthus leaves and baroque volute. All of them are decorated with carvings. These products, apparently, decorated the festive table of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna during ceremonial receptions.

Amber room during the time of Catherine II

In 1763, Empress Catherine II issued a decree according to which all canvases painted "in amber look" were to be replaced with real amber mosaics. The grandiose work took 4 years and 450 kilograms of this stone. In 1770 the work was completed.

By decree of Catherine II, who paid great attention to the development of furniture in Russia, the Amber Room was replenished with numerous masterpieces of this craft.

According to the inventory compiled by D. Grigorovich, by the end of the 19th century, the palace had a large amount of furniture, mainly chests of drawers and tables. She was mostly of French descent. Where the place of manufacture was not indicated, most likely it was about Russian products. One of the exhibits, a chest of drawers, is especially interesting. The unusual fate of him and the chest of drawers paired with him is very curious. During the Great Patriotic War, they were left in the palace and taken to Germany by the invaders, and half a century later one of them returned to its original place. Both chests of drawers were recorded in pre-war photographs of the Amber Room, they were also included in the inventory of the museum in 1938-1940. The returned piece of furniture has a marking that matches the numbers from the records of the palace. In the 1990s, a chest of drawers was discovered in Berlin, in a private collection, and bought from its owner on the initiative of the Spiegel magazine, and later, already in 2000, the Amber Room of the Catherine Palace (Pushkin) regained this masterpiece. The chest of drawers, in addition to its interesting fate, is curious in itself, as an example of one of the first experiments in creating furniture in Russia based on samples of French products dating back to the 1760s.

Since strong temperature drops, drafts and destroyed amber, only in the 19th century the restoration of the Amber Room was carried out three times.

Snapshot of the Amber Room

In 1907, the first "autochrome" records were released, having developed a three-color mosaic raster. These were some of the first color images in the history of photography. In 1917, Lukomsky, head of the Artistic and Historical Commission that worked in the palaces, received permission to film in the palaces of Tsarskoye Selo. Including it was planned to shoot in the city of Pushkin, the Catherine Palace, the Amber Room was also supposed to be photographed. This was a necessity for creating catalogs of museum exhibits. The shooting was carried out by A.A. Zeest. The photographs were taken in the Catherine's Palace in June, and in the Alexander Palace - from August 14, 1917, immediately after the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family were sent to Tobolsk. On October 11, 1917, P.K. Lukomsky received 140 photographs, one of which also captured the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace. Until 1941, it remains the only color image of her.

In 1933-1935, minor restoration works were carried out by the sculptor I. Krestovsky.

Loss of interior

In the summer of 1941, a grandiose restoration of the masterpiece was planned, but the outbreak of World War II prevented its implementation. They wanted to evacuate the amber room, for which the mosaics were sealed with a thin layer of a special one. But the trial removal of the panel showed that the amber was crumbling. It was very important to save the Catherine Palace from looting. The amber room, the price of which was truly enormous, must certainly have been hidden from the invaders. Therefore, it was decided to subject it to conservation on the spot. The panels were sealed with gauze, covered with batting covers and covered with wooden shields.

When the Amber Room (Catherine's Palace, Pushkin) was attacked by German soldiers, among whom was a team of specialists in the export of art treasures, the panel was removed and sent to Koenigsberg.

Here she stayed until the spring of 1945. According to the German newspaper Königsberg Allgemeine Zeitung, on November 13, 1941, art historian Alfred Rohde organized an exhibition of precious stones and some elements of the decoration of the Amber Room (hidden in a safe place) in the Prussian Art Museum. In 1944, when the Germans were retreating, the panels were again taken apart, put into boxes and sent in an unknown direction. Since then, the Amber Room has been lost.

The revival of a masterpiece

In 1979, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR decided to recreate the amber panels.

In 1983, according to photographs and negatives, the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace began its revival according to the project of the architect A. A. Kedrinsky. In 1994, the first panels were installed in the lower tier, and two years later work on the Vision mosaic was completed. In April 2000, a chest of drawers of Russian work, discovered in Germany, and a mosaic "Touch and Smell", which were part of the decoration of the room, returned to the museum.

In June 2003, in honor of the tercentenary (Catherine's Palace), the Amber Room was opened to the public. The leaders of Russia and Germany took part in the solemn ceremony. The work, which lasted 24 years, was completed. A new period has begun in the history of this grandiose work of art!

Amber Room (Catherine's Palace): where is it located, opening hours

The city of Pushkin, where the museum is located, is located 25 kilometers from St. Petersburg.

Currently, the Catherine Palace (Amber Room) is open daily from 10 am to 5 pm, the only day off is Tuesday, and every last Monday of the month is a sanitary day.

During the summer period, tourist groups and official delegations are serviced from 10 am to 4 pm, and from 4 pm to 5 pm - entrance by tickets for individual visitors. If there are no custom groups, individual visitors can be served at other times. Tickets are not sold in advance, they must be bought at the box office located in the lobby of the palace (Pushkin, Tsarskoe Selo, Catherine Palace).

The Amber Room, which is paid to visit, offers discounts for certain categories of the population. So, the cost of tickets for adults is 400 rubles, and for students, students of Russian universities, as well as pensioners of the Russian Federation and Belarus - 300 rubles. Such ticket prices were set by the Catherine Palace. A tour of the halls (including the Amber Room) is paid separately.