Local enthusiasts are convinced that the legendary treasure is still in the region.
For the world production of amber, Amber is what Paris is for high fashion, and Los Angeles is for the world of commercial cinema.
The international capital of amber is home to 5,529 residents, according to the latest census, and although the local population is proud of the Protestant church and beautiful beaches, the city's main street, Sovetskaya, with all due respect, can hardly compare with the Champs Elysees or Sunset Boulevard.
But if you are looking for a piece made from amber, be it simple earrings or ambitious artistic compositions, then this place on the Baltic Sea is just the place for you.
In Denmark, we best know amber as something that the sea washed ashore after a storm, but in Yantarny, which is about 40 km from the large Russian city of Kaliningrad, there is an industrial approach to the issue.
From the observation deck near Yantarnoye, you can look into a giant mine, where a thousand workers use huge machines to extract up to 400 tons of amber every year.
“Here, in the Kaliningrad region, about 90% of the world's amber reserves are concentrated,” says Anna Manakhova of the state-owned company Kaliningrad Amber, which has a concession for the extraction of natural resources.
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The disappeared room
The work is being carried out in a particularly rich part of the colossal deposit, which is supposed to stretch over 70 square kilometers. Amber was mined here in the 17th century, and in the middle of the 19th century the Germans started serious mining in these places.
“The local deposits will last for 300 years, if we extract amber at the same rate as now, so there will be enough for everyone,” says Anna Manakhova.
But all the same: something is missing.
Because the most famous work of art made of amber, the Amber Room of Peter the Great, disappeared without a trace in the East Prussian Königsberg (renamed by the Russians to Kaliningrad in 1946) during the nightmare that took place in these places in the last days of the war.
The Amber Room was originally created for the Prussian king by goldsmiths under the guidance of Gottfried Wolfram, an amber carver at the Danish royal court, but in 1716 it was presented to Tsar Peter the Great as a gift. Until World War II, the "room", whose amber panels weighed more than 6 tons, and which, moreover, contained a large amount of gold, was located in a palace in the suburb of Tsarskoye Selo, about 25 km from St. Petersburg.
In the fall of 1941, this territory was occupied by the troops of Adolf Hitler, who dismantled the room and sent it to Konigsberg. There she was exhibited in the city castle. Apparently, she was here until the beginning of 1945, but her further fate is unknown. Some believe that she died during the monstrous bombing of the city by British aircraft, others think that she disappeared during the evacuation of Konigsberg, but remained intact.
“Where the Amber Room is located is a big mystery, and we certainly hope that one day it will be found,” says Anna Manakhova.
And in these hopes she is not alone, because for many years a whole army of treasure hunters has been looking for the disappeared masterpiece.
There are many theories as to what could have happened to the Amber Room. The adherents of one of them stubbornly claim that it is located in the immediate vicinity of Yantarny.
Treasure hunter theories
A few kilometers from here is the Anna mine, where at the time this territory was part of East Prussia, amber was mined in a way known, for example, for coal mining.
The mine is associated with the crime committed by the Germans in the last days of the war against the survivors of Nazi concentration camps. But there are also those who believe that the Amber Room was hidden in this system of drifts, which today are in very poor condition.
Others have a GPS facing the center of Kaliningrad, where the “room”, once flatteringly named “the eighth wonder of the world”, was seen in 1944/45, as it is believed, for the last time. Here was the Königsberg Castle, whose history dates back to the Middle Ages. It was badly destroyed during the war, was never rebuilt, and in the late 1960s it was blown up on orders from the Kremlin.
Instead of the Castle, the so-called Palace of the Soviets was erected, an example of brutal architecture, which was not completed before the collapse of the USSR and which is still idle.
Amber Room: 6 tons of amber collected in one place
The room was made in Prussia and presented to Peter the Great as a gift in 1716.
It consisted of more than 100 thousand pieces of amber, skillfully selected in the form of mosaics. The total weight of the amber was 6 tons.
In 1941, German troops stole the Amber Room and sent it to East Prussia. Here, the room was destroyed or destroyed under unexplained circumstances in the last days of the war.
The approximate cost of a masterpiece today is from 1 to 3 billion Danish kroner.
Some treasure hunters think that the destroyed Amber Room found its final resting place here, under the Palace of the Soviets. Unauthorized excavations in the Kaliningrad region are often associated not so much with archaeological interests as with cold commercialism.
According to the current legislation, the fine for unauthorized excavations in this place is about 750 CZK, but even if you don’t find the Amber Room, you can find amber for 10 times the fine. Therefore, many are ready to try their luck.
“In 2013, about 350 such violations were registered, and in 2016, 2,500 people were brought to justice for the illegal extraction of amber,” says Anton Alikhanov, the regional governor.
Some treasure hunters believe, however, that the Amber Room is located in a completely different region, far from the Baltic Sea. One of the most widespread theories is that the "room" was transferred to the Americans in 1950 in an atmosphere of utmost secrecy as payment for the supply of equipment during the war years. As for the current value of the Amber Room, it ranges from about 1 billion to 3 billion DKK.
Polish "golden train"
Some say that the Amber Room was aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff liner, which in January 1945, with many thousands of German refugees on board, was sunk in the Baltic Sea by a Soviet submarine. According to another theory, also unconfirmed, German troops in the last days of the war buried the Amber Room in North Jutland.
Two years ago, a sensation came from Polish treasure hunters in Silesia, who thought they had found the so-called "golden train" of Nazi times in a system of underground tunnels near the town of Walbrzych. At that moment, optimistic observers thought that the riddle of the Amber Room was about to be solved. The whole area was cordoned off by order of the Polish authorities to avoid looting.
Subsequent excavations by both the authorities and the two local adventurers have found no train, no gold, or even a distant trace of the Amber Room.
Loch Ness Baltic
However, other enthusiasts were not scared off, and earlier this year there were reports of new searches in Thuringia in Germany.
And in Kaliningrad, Andrei Ermak, head of the city department for tourism and culture, regularly receives requests in connection with new, innovative traces in the search.
“Many people know where the Amber Room is,” he says with a smile.
A reconstructed version of the room was opened in 2003, but this has not diminished interest in finding the missing original.
And for many treasure hunters, there is real space here, since the Amber Room for Kaliningrad has become what the Loch Ness monster is for the Scottish highlands, the tourist director said.
“We tell all tourists that they need to come and look for a room,” says Andriy Ermak.
From the office of the mayor of a Russian city in the Baltic, it is obvious that all this hype is beneficial in any respect.
If the "room" is found, it will become a real sensation. If not, then numerous searches will still keep people in good shape.
“I think we have already earned more on this than the Amber Room ever cost,” says Andriy Ermak.
Poul Funder Larsen