Bernstein Zimmer Amber Room

The Amber Room was made step by step, slowly; as this must have been a very work intensive project, beginning in 1701. It took almost 10 years to be built. After its completion, it was installed at the Charlottenburg Palace, home of Friedrich I, the first king of Prussia, at the request of his second wife, Sophie Charlotte. The room was designed by the German Andreas Schlüter. The master project supervising Artist was Gottfried Wolfram, who stood in the employment of the Danish King Frederick IV of Denmark. Other master craftsmen involved in the project were Ernst Schacht and Gottfried Turau from Danzig.

The Amber Room did not stay in its original place for long. Peter the Great who was visiting from Prussia fell in love with it so much, that the son of Friedrich Wilhelm I, the first king's son, gave it to him as a friendship gift in 1716. One of the possible motivating factors for such generous present could have been to form an alliance against Sweden.

In 1755 yet another trip was undertaken by the beautiful Amber Room. This time, it was Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia who ordered it to be installed in the Winter Palace, and later it was uprooted yet another time, to be set up in the Catherine Palace. From Berlin, Friedrich II supplied the Czarina with some rare Baltic amber, to perform muchneeded repair. Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli finished the installment.

The Amber Room thus symbolized a joint venture of German and Russian Artists and it became the envy of many European rulers. When it was measured after its final restoration during the 18th century, it was said to be over 55 square meters large, and included more than six tons of amber (1 ton = 1,000 kg).

The original Amber Room (German: Bernstein Zimmer) in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoie Zelo (which is in the vicinity of Saint Petersburg) was a room completely covered with amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors. Because of its unique beauty, some sources referred to it as the "Eighth Wonder of the World".

The Amber Room was ordered to be transported to Nazi Germany during WW II and was supposed to have been sent to Königsberg where it never arrived. Information on its whereabouts is missing to date. The fate of the Amber Room resembles a one-of-a-kind suspense story. The search continues today, but with not much results.

According to some unverified sources, parts of the Amber Room survived the war and may still be at a secret location.

Some other, contradictory stories emerged, for example, that the Amber Room was completely destroyed by bombing before it could have been safely packed and transported out by the Germans; that it may be hidden somewehere in Germany; that it may have been transported to the Ore Mountains; or that it was destroyed / sunk with a German ship or submarine which got hit by Soviet artillery in a battle on the Baltic Sea.

Many different individuals and groups, including the government of the Soviet Union, have conducted extensive searches for it at various time points since WWII, to no avail. In 1998, two independent searching teams reported that they found the Amber Room: the first in a silver mine in Germany, the other in Lithuania in a remote sea lagoon. However, neither search teams were able to deliver proof for their claims.

Interestingly, in 1997 an Italian stone mosaic that was part of a set of four such mosaic plates decorating the Amber Room was found in West Germany. The family of the person who reported the find was no other than one of the soldiers assigned to the packaging team, during WWII which was supposed to bring this treasure to Germany.

Today, the Amber Room is reconstructed in the Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. Since 2003 the exhibition receives visitors again from around the World.