Tales of the Amber Room Trivia Quiz

Answer: Frederick I

Designed by Andreas Schlüter, a German baroque sculptor and architect, the completed walls were eventually installed at Berlin City Palace. Gottfried Wolframin, master craftsman to the king of Denmark, fabricated the room with the help of Ernst Schacht and Gottfried Turau, amber masters from Danzig.

Answer: Peter the Great

Frederick William I, the son of Frederick I, made a gift of the Amber Room to Peter the Great in 1716, which resulted in an alliance between Prussia and Russia against Sweden. The Amber Room was disassembled into eighteen large boxes, shipped by sea, and later carried by horses to its new home. Originally it was displayed in the Winter Palace in Petersburg.

Answer: 13,000 pounds

Peter's daughter, Empress Elisabeth, decided the room should be rebuilt at Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, about twenty-five miles south of Petersburg. The Russian Imperial Family usually spent their summers there. Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli, an Italian architect who spent his career in Russia, created the room; the picture is one of few color pictures that was taken of the original Amber Room before it was lost.

Answer: Mosaic

The Amber Room that was constructed at the Catherine Palace in Russia was much larger than the one at the Berlin Palace. Rastrelli and his staff choose other pieces for the room, such as mirrors and additional panels, which existed in completed form from 1763-1941.

The finished project covered approximately 590 square feet. The room in the picture shows part of the reconstruction project that was initiated in 1979 by the government of the Soviet Union.

Answer: The amber had become brittle, and removal could be very damaging.

Actually Hitler had composed a list of European artwork, given out to all army units, that he planned to display in a grand museum in Austria near his hometown. On the list were 55 items, as well as their exact location. The Amber Room was definitely on the list.

Although the project of disassembling the Amber Room was halted by the Russian curators of the Catherine Palace for fear of ruining the brittle amber, the truth of the matter was that there was no way the Russians could spare the labor or trains needed to safeguard all of their valuable art. By September 1941 the German army was quartered at Catherine Palace, and was said to be using the valuable furniture to sleep and sit on.

This picture was taken after the completed reconstruction of the room in 2003.

Answer: They wallpapered over the amber.

Afraid of damaging the brittle amber, the Russians came up with Plan B. They applied thick, ordinary wallpaper to the walls. An unnamed eyewitness, who claimed to be present when the German soldiers discovered the ruse, said they tore the wallpaper off the wall and began to use their rifles to break souvenirs out of the wall. One can only imagine the damage to the fragile amber when the wallpaper was removed.

It is said that two "experts" supervised the disassembling of the room, which took thirty-six hours.

Answer: Angels

The Amber Room in Catherine Palace was decorated with statues of children and angels, as well as amber panels, gold leaf, and precious gems. Enjoyed by a very small number of people from 1763-1941, it is said that when daylight was shining through the windows of the room, the lighting of candles was unnecessary because the amber created thousands of beautiful reflections in the many mirrors.

This picture was taken after the completion of the reconstruction project in 2003.

Answer: Königsberg Castle

It was written that the Amber Room was "returned" to Königsberg Castle, "its true home", because it was made there. Within a month of arrival in Königsberg, a local newspaper announced that the room was ready for exhibition. In January 1945, Hitler gave orders for all looted art items to be removed from Königsberg.

However, with the confusion at the end of the war and the fleeing of party officials, it was uncertain if the Amber Room was ever dismantled. The RAF heavily bombed Königsberg in August 1944, and the Red Army bombarded and besieged the city from January 1945 until it was stormed by the Soviets on April 6-9, 1945. Was the Amber Room destroyed? Many eyewitnesses claimed to have seen the room loaded on a boat in January 1945. However, the boat was sunk shortly after leaving Gdynia. Königsberg became part of the Russian SFSR after WWII and was renamed Kaliningrad.

When Leonid Brezhnev ordered the destruction of Königsberg Castle in 1968, it seemed that any future information regarding the Amber Room would be impossible to obtain.

Answer: Tercentenary celebration of St. Petersburg.

The reconstruction project took twenty-four years to complete. Russian and German craftsmen authentically re-created the room using original drawings and black and white photographs. Even with financial assistance from a German company, E.ON, it was difficult to recreate the room as there are few skilled artisans who work with amber.

The new room was dedicated by Russian President Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The picture was taken at the completion of the reconstruction project.

Answer: True

The term "Eighth Wonder of the World" is commonly used to describe modern structures that are believed to be comparable to the Seven Wonders. Included on the list are natural wonders, such as Uluru in Australia, Pre-1900 constructions, such as the Great Wall of China, and Post-1900 constructions, such as the Sydney Opera House. By all accounts, the exquisite Amber Room deserves to be on the list!