okay so if you want to skip over this
quick prelude or to when I actually get
to the Amber Room if you're one of those
people click here or here but I have
something to talk about first I did have
a fancy introduction planned for this
video you guys had to go and ruin it
with that ah so um what what is this ah
what this Wow okay um oh God
oh wow okay what about
hey no pressure then so before I even
delve into the subject matter I just
want to clarify one thing amber
most people I presume know what it is
but I just don't want to leave anyone
behind with the topic so what exactly is
amber amber is essentially tree sap
and looks like this an orange yellow
golden clear stone thing it looked like
a mineral like coarse or topaz but I
remind you it is from a tree that does
come into play later
additionally thanks to this weird former
liquid state material can get trapped
inside the SAP and their pipe preserved
inside the amber for millions of years
most interestingly in the case of
primitive insects which is really
helpful if you are interested in the
evolution of certain creatures or you
just need some priests or DNA for some
weird unrelated project amber is so
light it floats on water and that's why
the main way of collecting is fossilized
relic is not by digging it out of the
ground but by fishing it out of the sea
of course this weird floaty floaty
orange rock intrigue Adarsh rule
dwelling ancestors as we are today with
amber artifacts dating back to
prehistory with one major use being
cosmetic because it looks nice insects
or not so why wouldn't it be amber has
been fashioned into beads and necklaces
and lamps and ornate amber chess sets
and model ships and crowns and miniature
trees okay but if you want to see in my
opinion the most grand and beautiful use
look no further than the historic Amber
Room in the Catherine Palace nursing
Petersburg Wow okay this rather big 590
square foot room is clad in six tons of
amber which works out at around five
point five cubic meters of the stuff
since it's so light that is a lot of
amber also in the room are numerous
areas covered in gold leaf with mirrored
panels that give me flashbacks to
Versailles accompanied with a massive
ceiling mural depicting some heavenly
scene that I have been able to track
down for this estimated be five meters
long by five meters wide through
pictures I can find it is amazing it is
incredible and this is
not it oh oh okay uh-huh
I should probably explain that so um
story time this story starts in 1701
when King Frederick the first a king of
a kingdom that - started in 1701
Commission's a room decorated lavishly
in amber for his residence and
Charlottenburg Palace in the West at
Prussia's capital Berlin yes that Berlin
the rulers interior was designed by
Andres Schlueter a native architect who
worked on a whole bunch of buildings
facades and statues in modern-day
Germany in Poland it was actually built
however by Gottfried Wolfram man that's
a nicer name from Denmark with helpers
construction was continued by Wolfram
for six years until it was taken over by
a so-called amber masters which makes
sense because amber would be softer than
wood or stone when carving I wrote like
a whole thing on how hard it was
compared to other things but it's just
on screen if you want to do I'm not
going to go through speaking of which
amber was likely sourced from the Baltic
Sea remember the fact about collecting
amber from earlier baltic sea of course
having the largest positive amber in the
world with an estimated 60,000 tons of
the stuff extracted over human history
according to some estimates that's ten
thousand amber rooms by 1716 it was
complete and installed in a different
palace than Charlottenburg oh okay we
know this because by then the Tsar of
Russia Peter the Great who was great and
called Peter visited the palace and was
greatly impressed by the ornate room
because of course he was so Frederick
William the first of Russia who is a
different person from his father King
Frederick the first or his son Frederick
the Great gave the room to his ally
Peter in order to strengthen relations
between their respective countries and
also against Sweden because insert joke
about people hating Sweden the room was
reworked and installed again in the
Winter Palace in some Petersburg and to
be honest I don't know that much about
that particular Palace but I would like
to add it is the setting for a 96 minute
long film that was done in one complete
take with no carts and over 2,000 actors
it doesn't really relate to anything
it's just a cool piece of information I
don't really need to know that much
about it though to be honest because
only 39 years later it was moved by
Peters daughter and again installed and
reworked in the Catherine Palace for her
uses of meditation space this room in
the Catherine
was considerably larger than before so
it was reworked massively and expanded
so it reached the 590 square foot and
6-ton figures that I mentioned earlier
at this point it was estimated to be
worth 122 million pounds in today's
money which is incredible and here in
st. Petersburg it stayed until the 20th
century wait wait hold on a minute
it's in Europe in the 20th century and
it's a valuable treasure that ends up
disappearing mysteriously oh no come on
oh oh not again yes because on the 22nd
of June in 1941 Adolf Hitler launched
Operation Barbarossa an invasion of
Russia the curators of the historic
palace in what was now called Leningrad
were very aware of what that meant for
the palace and the artifacts inside
looting pillaging and destruction so in
the month and a half before the German
forces reached Leningrad the curators
tried desperately to save as many
artifacts as possible but the Amber Room
was just too fragile to be moved
it just started crumble when it was
removed from the walls so even though
the Nazis would just over the horizon
they left the cladding Insitute and hid
it under cotton and wallpaper
so maybe the Nazis wouldn't find it and
would leave it be that did not work like
at all and within 36 hours of the
invasion of Catherine Palace they had
found it stripped off the walls crammed
it into 27 crates and had it shipped
back to Konigsberg castle in prussia by
the 14th of october 1941 which by that
time was part of Nazi Germany there in
königsberg castle it was reinstalled for
the fourth time and put on display for
two years by Alfred Road Road however
you pronounce that please someone German
tell me actually don't tell me because
I'm still getting comments about how to
pronounce this word from like three
weeks ago I get it it's coke okay you
can come Scott now who was a German art
curator
yeah Nazis loved their art Alfred also
loved the Amber Room and wrote two books
on amber so he sounds like the right man
for the job I guess on the 21st of
January 1945 as the Nazis were losing
World War two the Fuhrer ordered all
artifacts been
moved so that they didn't fall back into
the hands of the grand alliance but in
this case it was too little too late
throughout 1944 the RAF heavily bombed
königsberg and towards the end of the
year the city was seized by the Red Army
and from that point on the amber panels
disappeared forever ooh spooky we'll get
back to what probably happened to it
later but as you might have guessed in
1979 the Soviet Union had a replica made
and installed into Catherine Palace
where it had been held the longest it
took until the fall of the Soviet Union
and the next century for it to become
complete in 2003 it took 40 Crossman and
was a lot harder the second time around
as carving amber was nearly a lost
profession and they decided to replicate
it as exactly as possible today you can
go if you want to Catherine Palace and
see the reconstruction 10:00 until 4:45
closed on Tuesdays but back to the
original where did it go where is it was
it destroyed who took it who has it now
all our questions good questions
questions I don't have the answer to but
hey that hasn't stopped me before
speculation time ok so this is the kind
of scenario where someone in the
comments is going to step in and tell me
insignificant detail while the answer I
mention is wrong you know just like
every other video I've made so I'm going
to go through the scenarios one by one
and list the evidence for and against
and maybe mention experts opinion on
that hypothesis let's begin
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it was packed up onto a ship at the
nearby port of Danzig or godina in order
to be saved from the Red Army and is
currently at the bottom of the baltic
well until we look on every shipwreck
from our period we don't know and
likelihood is despite the buoyancy it
was down below in some hold somewhere so
would still be there if anybody was
willing to let me borrow their
submersible amber can survive well in
water remember hell I can even think off
the top of my head of the ship that left
Gdynia at the right time to be carrying
the amber room and did sink but that in
itself is definitely a story for another
time
it does sound plausible but as of
writing this and now speaking this there
is no proof in this direction other than
as far as I know an unsubstantiated
claim that a German eyewitness saw them
loading panels onto that ship so maybe
probably probably not if
it's in the quarry somewhere this seems
to be a favorite with treasure hunters
that the panels are just waiting for
them out there there seem to be stories
every few months that they're in a
bunker or a quarry or a ruin or whatever
and it does seem very likely that the
Axis powers would try and at least hide
the treasure from the Soviets just like
the Soviets did in return in 1941
there's all these potential sites but as
far as I know nothing has ever come from
these stories ever so probably not maybe
unknown the Germans destroyed it this is
quite unlikely if you're going the fact
that they did it accidentally because
they've disassembled it before and would
at least keep it even if it was a bit
cracked but what if they destroyed it
intentionally well that's also unlikely
as though they did destroy some art it
seems to be only art that was frowned
upon by the regime this room was put on
display so it's probably not going to be
that either this in the opinion of some
experts and this random guy on reddit is
the most likely theory this Russian
treasure was destroyed by the Russians
by accident well during the siege of
königsberg the area it was stored in was
shelled and bombed heavily and if that
wasn't enough it can easily disappear
thanks to a weird quirk of amber
mentioned earlier
amber is made from tree amber can burn
and will very well in fact according to
a very in-depth study by UK
investigators Adrian Levy and Catherine
Scott Clark it was destroyed by the Red
Army's attack on the city and according
to their report this hypothesis agrees
with the Soviet explanation for its
disappearance files in the Russian
archive written just after the Soviet
capture of the city by Alexander
Ivanovich
rusev who personally inspected the site
and interviewed eyewitnesses are
reported to say quote restaurant manager
mr. Fairey airbend was in the castle up
until his capture and says that the
Amber Room was in crates at the moment
of surrender and
and there during a fire that destroyed
the northern wing the team led by Bruce
of inspected the area and reportedly
found copper hinges and piles of ash
strewn across the floor he goes on to
conclude quote summarizing all the facts
we can say the Amber Room was destroyed
between the 9th and the 11th of April
1945 which is when Colonels Berg was
sieged when this was published in 2004
the Russian government spoke out against
this claim denying that they did
anything during World War two because of
course they would if this is true or if
it isn't it really doesn't matter Russia
would not want to be seen as responsible
for destruction of their own history
that makes sense so according to this
theory Russia might know full well what
happened to the Amber Room hence why
they gave up and made a new one but just
don't want anyone else to know in case
they get blamed for its destruction but
disclaimer time that is just a theory
a historical theory thanks for listening
but it might not be true there's
certainly evidence I've overlooked
somewhere and I'm gonna pass no certain
verdict you decide but that is the story
and the mystery of the Amber Room I hope
you liked my new video I've been under a
lot of pressure so I hope you enjoyed it
and thank you for watching
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