One of the main attractions of the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo was the famous room, in the walls of which were mounted mosaic panels made of natural amber, presented to Peter I as a diplomatic gift by the Prussian emperor Frederick I. As you know, these panels were taken out by the Nazis during the war. The search for the Amber Room continues to this day.
The mysterious death of Alexander Belyaev
In the summer of 1941, on the eve of the fascist offensive, museum workers evacuated a significant part of art collections, books, various utensils, and hid something in the basements. In September, Pushkin (that was the name of Tsarskoe Selo since 1937) was occupied by German troops, who destroyed and plundered the unique complex.
The death of the famous Soviet science fiction writer Alexander Belyaev is associated with the mystery of the Amber Room. Who among us in our teens has not read Amphibian Man and Professor Dowell's Head? Meanwhile, in the life of the writer himself there were many strange and incomprehensible things. For example, it is still not known exactly how he died and where exactly he was buried …
The war found the Belyaev family in Pushkin. The writer, who had recently undergone spinal surgery, refused to evacuate, and soon the city was occupied by the Germans.
According to the official version, the science fiction writer died of starvation in January 1942. The body was transferred to the crypt at the Kazan cemetery - to wait in line for burial. The line was supposed to come only in March, and in February, the writer's wife and daughter were taken prisoner to Poland.
There is a legend that the body of Belyaev was taken out of the crypt and buried by a fascist general with soldiers. Allegedly, as a child, the general read Belyaev's works, and therefore decided to honor his body to the ground. According to another version, the corpse was simply buried in a common grave. One way or another, the exact place of burial of the writer is unknown. Subsequently, a memorial stele was erected at the Kazan cemetery in Pushkin. But Belyaev's grave is not under it.
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According to publicist Fyodor Morozov, Belyaev worked on a story dedicated to the Amber Room. This aroused interest in him from the Gestapo. It seems that the Gestapo tried to attract Alexander Romanovich as a consultant … Maybe he paid for the fact that he knew too much? Or died from torture? They also say that the body of the science fiction writer was charred.
Fire in the Royal Castle
From 1942 to 1944, panels from the Amber Room were on display at the Royal Castle of Königsberg. However, in August 1944, a fire broke out in the castle as a result of an attack by British aircraft. Although the panels were not damaged, they were packed in boxes and hidden in basements. After the storming of Koenigsberg in April 1945, the Amber Room disappeared without a trace.
In the early 80s of the last century, work began on the reconstruction of the Amber Room in Pushkin. In 2003, for the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg, the panels were restored in full. Meanwhile, the search for the true Amber Room continued.
Altar under the oak
On the territory of the former Kurland boiler in Latvia, there is a place called Lestene. Here, near the Berzini farm, a huge oak tree grows. They say that near the oak there was once an ancient pagan altar, the "keeper" of this place. According to eyewitness testimony, in 1944, several Nazi military vehicles arrived here, loaded with some kind of boxes. The Nazis shot through the oak tree (destroyed the altar?), And then buried the boxes in the ground. There is a version that the dismantled Amber Room was located in them.
Inaccessible treasure
A few years ago, a trail of legendary treasures surfaced in the small East German town of Deutschkatarinberg, on the very border with the Czech Republic.
One of the local residents, Peter Hostein, took it into his head to delve into the computer archives of his recently deceased father, who served as an operator of the German Air Force during the war. Among the electronic documents stored in the computer, Hostein found evidence that in late 1944, a large number of heavy boxes were hastily removed from the residence of one of the leaders of the Third Reich, Hermann Goering, Schorfheid, located north of Berlin. They were taken to an underground bunker near the town of Deutschendorf - that was the name of the current Deutschkatarinberg at that time.
The heir to the Luftwaffe veteran found several old-timers who remembered the spot on the slope between the road and the cliff where the entrance to the artificial cave once stood.
Then the excitement began. At the expense of the local authorities, specialists in mining engineering were invited. The electromagnetic analysis actually revealed in the indicated place at a depth of 20 meters underground voids filled with dense structures. Apparently, there could have been folded boxes.
The city's mayor, Heinz-Peter Haustein, told the press that there was no doubt that the boxes were not iron, but most likely gold or silver.
“We're 90 percent sure we found the Amber Room,” he said. - The cache is part of a labyrinth built by the Nazis to store looted goods. Local residents always knew about the existence of the labyrinth, only its exact location was unknown.
But the researchers never managed to get to the alleged treasury and get acquainted with its contents.
The mystification of the century?
However, there is a version that the Nazis took possession of only a copy of the Amber Room, and the real one was safely hidden even before the start of the Great Patriotic War.
They say that after the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact in 1939, the writer Alexei Tolstoy suggested that Stalin donate the Amber Room to Hitler to strengthen friendship with Germany. Moreover, the panels needed restoration and were in a deplorable state … However, the "leader of the peoples" did not take this step. Instead, he ordered a duplicate of the Amber Room for Hitler, as well as its life-size model. 20 days before the start of the war, the original was disassembled, put in boxes and lowered into the cellars of the Catherine Palace. A model was installed in the hall. It was he, presumably, that went to the Nazis.
Maybe the Amber Room hasn't disappeared anywhere? And its reconstruction is just a hoax, and the original was simply taken out of the cellars and installed in its original place? Or is it still a copy? One way or another, the history of the Amber Room remains one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century.
Margarita TROITSYNA