The Amber Room

history · lost treasure · Russia

Glowing amber panels. The Amber Room was a real room decorated entirely with panels of amber, which is fossilized tree resin that looks like golden glass. The amber glowed beautifully when light shone through it, creating a magical effect.

An incredible gift. The Amber Room was originally built as a gift from the King of Prussia to the Russian Tsar Peter the Great in the early 1700s. This showed how valuable and special amber work was considered back then.

A royal palace chamber. The Amber Room was located inside the Catherine Palace near Saint Petersburg, Russia, where Russian royalty lived and held grand celebrations. It became one of the most famous rooms in the entire palace.

Mysteriously disappeared. During World War II, the Amber Room vanished and nobody knows exactly where it went. For many years it remained one of history's greatest unsolved mysteries about a missing treasure.

Rebuilt masterpiece. In 2003, after many years of work, craftspeople finished creating an exact replica of the Amber Room using modern techniques. Today visitors can see this recreated wonder in the Catherine Palace.