AMBER ROOM, a unique interior of the Great Catherine Palace, and 18th century arts and crafts monument. The walls of the Amber Room are decorated with the amber panels (the only example of amber used in Russian architecture). In 1716, Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I granted an amber study to Peter the Great staying in Habelberg (near Berlin), but the attempt to establish it straightaway failed. For the first time in St. Petersburg the Amber Room was arranged for the future Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in the Third Winter Palace. In 1745, Friedrich II who had ascended the Prussian throne presented Empress Elizaveta Petrovna the forth Amber Room, executed at his behest in Konigsberg (in addition to the three presented to Peter the Great). In the same years F. Rastrelli, reconstructing the Grand Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, included the Amber Room in the premises of the Gala Palace. To make assurance doubly sure, panels and frames treasured in the Summer Palace of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg were moved to Tsarskoe Selo under armed guard. To set the Amber Room the premises of 96 square metres turned out to be too spacious. Rastrelli offered a three-tier composition of the decor and placed the already existing panels and frames in the middle tier. Above and below it the walls were covered with canvas and painted by I.I. Belsky to look like amber. In 1758, Prussian amber master F. Roggenbuck headed the production of new amber articles in the workshops created on the spot. In the course of four years eight shields of the lower tier and eight panels were made (450 kg of amber was used). A Florentine mosaic was made in Italy in Petroduru workshops to the sketches of G. Zocchi. During the Great Patriotic War the decor of the Amber Room was taken by German authorities to Konigsberg, in 1944 it was lost. In the 1990s, in Germany two items of the Amber room resurfaced, those were given over to Tsarskoe Selo Museum. Work on the reconstruction of the Amber Room started in 1986 (under the direction of architect A. A. Kedrinsky). The reconstructed Amber Room was solemnly opened in March of 2003.

References: Овсянов А. П. Янтарная комната: Возрождение шедевра. Калининград, 2002; Янтарная комната: Три века истории / И. П. Саутов, А. А. Кедринский, Л. В. Бардовская, Н. С. Григорович. СПб., 2003.

O. A. Chekanova. Belsky Ivan Ivanovich
Elizaveta Petrovna, Empress
Friedrich II, King
Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke
Peter I, Emperor
Rastrelli Francesco de
Roggenbuck F.
Zocchi Guiseppe