the restored Amber Room -- amber from Konigsberg/Kaliningrad -- near St Petersburg

The Amber Room
in the Ekaterininsky palace
in the city of Tsarskoe Selo
near St. Petersburg, Russia

The fabled Amber Room was a room that was made entirely of amber; a masterpiece of Baroque art. It was an extravagant gift given to Czar Peter the Great of Russia in 1716 [Vleeptron got that part right] by Frederick Wilhelm I, King of Prussia.

Czar Peter of Russia was taken with its opulence and it forged a lavish gesture of friendship between Russia and Germany until the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. After remaining in the possession of Russia until 1941, the Amber Room mysteriously disappeared.

What happened to it is not fully known. The amber panels were removed from the room and stored in Novosibirsk. Later, the room was crated up and transported to Kaliningrad. The amber panels were again moved in 1945 at the end of World War II and the room's trail was lost. Since then the panels have been restored.

In the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo [Vleeptron got that wrong], the amazingly beautiful, intricately decorated Amber Room will re-open, following a restoration that has lasted decades. Decorated with artfully assembled pieces of various kinds of amber (including unique amber pictures), restoration of the room has involved successive generations of restorers, and plans to have a complete reconstruction of the room ready in time for celebrations marking the 300th anniversary of St Petersburg.

Now at last, this masterpiece of the Age of Catherine the Great can again be seen by citizens of St. Petersburg and tourists from all over the world.