July 03, 2001

Amber Room


Amber Room

In 1701, the King of Prussia, Friedrich I, decided that he would like to have a palace room completely covered in amber. Work began on the walls to the room and continued until Friedrich's death in 1713. His heir, Friedrich Wilhelm I, insisted that the work be stopped and the completed wall panels were stored in the armory in Berlin.

In 1717, King Friedrich Wilhelm gave the Amber Room panels to Peter I of Russia as a gift. Even though the amber panels were highly admired, they were not mounted until 1743. Italian designer Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli was commissioned to assemble the panels in one of the rooms of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The Winter Palace Amber Room was opened in 1746 and remained there until 1755 when it was moved to Tsarskoe Selo, the Russian emperors' summer residence.

The Tsarskoe Selo room chosen for the amber panels measured 10 m 10 m 7.8 meters. Three walls were covered with the amber with the fourth adorned with mirrors and mosaics comprised of stones from the Urals and Caucuses. The Amber Room ceiling was painted and the floor inlaid with wood and was finally completed in the 1770s.

During the Patriotic War against Nazi Germany, the enemy took the Amber Room and pack it away in the Königsberg castle, now Kaliningrad in Russia. This is the last known whereabouts of the amber panels and it is suspected that they were burned in a fire at the castle in 1945. Others speculate that art enthusiasts and Nazi officer, Erich Koch, took the Amber Room to an unknown location in the wake of the advancing Red Army. In 1958, Koch was sentenced to death for war crimes but was never executed leading some to believe he was kept alive in hopes that he would reveal the location of the amber panels. He did not.

Sergei Kaminsky has been working on a labor of love for the past 16 years. Since 1996, he has been painstakingly working to reproduce the panels of the Amber Room. The first two panels were displayed by Russian officials on February 19, 2002. The original Amber Room is said to have contained 8 panels and 1,300 square feet of amber.

The amber mosaic panels are on display at the summer palace, Tsarskoye Selo in St. Petersburg which is now a museum. The reconstruction work was based on over 100 year old black-and-white photos and the craftsmen used the original 1700s method of combining the Kaliningrad amber with honey.

This work requires loving it. That's the secret.
- Sergei Kaminsky

Kaminsky and 50 other Russian craftsmen have been pouring over in excess of .5 million tiny pieces of amber in an effort to bring back to live this emperial treasure. The Amber Room panels are one of several projects being restored for the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg in 2003.

The return to Russia of art seized by the Nazis during WWII has been a sensitive issue for several years. The Amber Room has been at the center of many related discussions. The Soviet Union endorsed the recreation of the Amber Room in 1979. However, due to lack of funds, little work was done until 1991 when the German gas company, Ruhrgas, decided to assist in the project. Germany returned recovered fragments of the room to Russia in 2000 as part of a trophy art exchange between the two countries.

Restoration of the Amber Room
Photo by Alexander Belenky for, St. Petersburg Times

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
A Taste of Russia

A Taste of Russia

The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.  
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955