The Mystery of the Amber Room

The Amber Room is a famous and magnificent example of Amber craftmanship. It was made using a technique called "encrustation". The wall panels look like an Amber mosaic made up of hand shaped flat pieces of different shades of golden Amber inlaid with carved Amber figures, frames, mirrors and other shapes. Amazing! The room was made up of dismantlable Amber wall panels accompanied by many Amber ornaments like carved Amber tulips, roses, corner pieces etc...

The Amber Room was finished in 1711 and erected at Berlin Castle, Germany. Peter the Great of Russia was presented with the room as a gift in 1717. It was moved and re-erected at the Winter Palace, Neuen Palais at St. Petersburg (today's Leningrad, Russia). It was moved to Tsarskoja Selo, the Summer Palace at St. Petersburg in 1755.

It stayed in St. Petersburg until 1941 when the Nazis invaded Russia and took the panels to Königsberg, Germany (today's Kalingrad, Russia). When the Nazis began to lose the war in 1944 the room was dismantled and sent away. The location of the Amber Room died along with the curator of the Art Gallery in Königsberg, Alfred Rohde in 1945. The room has never been seen again. A mystery now has become of this beautiful artwork.

The Amber Room began to be re-created in 1979 at the Summer Palace in Leningrad and is yet to be completed. Poor funding is slowing down it's completion.