Built in 1701, the Amber Room was one of Russia's greatest treasures, and had even been called "the eighth wonder of the world." A spectacular chamber constructed out of amber, gold leaf and mirrors, it is exactly the kind of thing Indiana Jones would fight Nazis to obtain.
The entire piece changed palaces a few times until it landed in a St. Petersburg Palace, where Hitler's army stumbled across it in 1941. Unable to move it to safety, the evacuating Russians had simply wallpapered over it, hoping the Germans wouldn't ask why a room in a palace would have such tacky wallpaper. But they did and brought the entire room back home to Germany.
Once in Konigsberg, the room was set up in a castle and proudly displayed. By 1945, with the Russians advancing, Hitler personally ordered it to be taken down and sent to a secret location. The record indicates that the room was taken to a railway station, packed up and then the record screeches to a stop like someone told a racist joke at the Apollo. That was the last anyone ever heard of it.
How exactly do you lose an entire room full of gold and amber? Some say it was put on a boat that was sunk by the Allies. Other reports place it in a hidden bunker under the city. Meanwhile, the Russians have been searching for it like crazy. Since the end of the war, several expeditions have been mounted all over Europe, with sightings supposedly in abandoned mines, lagoons and caverns. And new investigations even go so far as to say the whole room was destroyed, and the Soviets covered the entire thing up.
The room has since been reconstructed in St. Petersburg, but certain pieces of the original pop up now and then just to keep the mystery alive, including a piece of a mosaic a German soldier took out when he helped move the room in 1945. Whoever finds it is going to be able to be rich enough to, we don't know, build a room out of freaking gold.
The entire piece changed palaces a few times until it landed in a St. Petersburg Palace, where Hitler's army stumbled across it in 1941. Unable to move it to safety, the evacuating Russians had simply wallpapered over it, hoping the Germans wouldn't ask why a room in a palace would have such tacky wallpaper. But they did and brought the entire room back home to Germany.
Once in Konigsberg, the room was set up in a castle and proudly displayed. By 1945, with the Russians advancing, Hitler personally ordered it to be taken down and sent to a secret location. The record indicates that the room was taken to a railway station, packed up and then the record screeches to a stop like someone told a racist joke at the Apollo. That was the last anyone ever heard of it.
How exactly do you lose an entire room full of gold and amber? Some say it was put on a boat that was sunk by the Allies. Other reports place it in a hidden bunker under the city. Meanwhile, the Russians have been searching for it like crazy. Since the end of the war, several expeditions have been mounted all over Europe, with sightings supposedly in abandoned mines, lagoons and caverns. And new investigations even go so far as to say the whole room was destroyed, and the Soviets covered the entire thing up.
The room has since been reconstructed in St. Petersburg, but certain pieces of the original pop up now and then just to keep the mystery alive, including a piece of a mosaic a German soldier took out when he helped move the room in 1945. Whoever finds it is going to be able to be rich enough to, we don't know, build a room out of freaking gold.
No comments:
Post a Comment