The Secrets. THE AMBER ROOM / ЯНТАРНАЯ КОМНАТА (a treasure stolen by Nazis in 1941 from the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, Russia, it subsequently disappeared in 1945, amidst the chaos at the end of the war).

The Amber Room, Tsarskoye Selo, Russia, Present Days

Much has been written about the lost Amber Room, but the mystery remains. It was one of Russia's masterpieces of artistry until it vanished with the Nazi retreat. Now a magnificent replica has been created to rival the original.

The story unfolds in as many locations. Prussian King Frederick I sought to have the most impressive work of amber art ever created.  His chief architect and an amber artist were commissioned to devise a study for the Great Royal Palace in Berlin, using Baltic amber (by the way, never before used for interior decoration on such a monumental scale).
Their work began in 1701 and continued until 1713, drawing on the King's existing amber stores and the best efforts of the most talented amber masters. When the old king died, the Amber Room was almost complete. When Frederick Wilhelm I came to power he was unmoved by the costly and ambitious project, rumor of which had by then traveled to eager ears in Russia. En his route to France, Russian Tsar Peter I visited Prussia in 1716, casting an admiring gaze on the Amber Room. He was asked then to accept the room as a diplomatic gift in order to cement the alliance between the two warlike states. After six weeks and a complex route - Berlin, Königsberg, Memel, Riga, St. Petersburg - the chests arrived at the Winter Palace.

It was later installed in the palace of Catherine the Great at Tsarskoye Selo, the opulent summer residence of the Russian royal family just outside St. Petersburg.
The Amber room's decorations consisted of handcrafted panels (made of gold and six tons of amber), Italian mosaics decorated with diamonds, emeralds, rubies,  and covered 1,800 square feet.

The Amber Room, Tsarskoye Selo

It is often referred to as the Eight Wonder of the World. People believe that it possessed magical energy.

 

When the German armies besieged Lenigrad during the WW II, they dismantled the famous Amber Room.  The Russians made preparations to secret the panels away to underground vaults in Sverdlovsk, but they were too late.

The Russians made preparations to secret the panels away to underground vaults in Sverdlovsk, but they were too late. Soon after the Amber Room was seized, the Nazis sent west by train. It was taken back to Königsberg Castle and displayed in one of the halls of the Königsberg Museum.

Just before the capitulation of the city in 1945, the Germans once again dismantled the room and packed it, intending to ship it back to Berlin. It has never been seen since... The hunt for the collection of jewel-encrusted panels that make up the Amber Room has been a great post-war quest.  

The KGB looked for it, the Stasi and many others did over the decades following WW II. All of them have failed in the search...

The mystery of the lost Amber Room continues to this day.