Humanity has long used the healing, artistic, and technical properties of this amazing stone - amber. Archaeologists have found "electron" ("amber" in Greek) in ancient tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. Highly artistic amber products had various shapes and sizes. Petrified resin was widely used by jewelers. Amber was used to make rings, beads, bracelets, and even jewelry... amber cabinets. Various sources claim that seven such apartments were made, and that all of them are in hiding places. There were such offices both in Germany and in Russia.

In 1716, King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia presented his amber cabinet to the Russian Tsar Peter 1. After its assembly in Russia, it was improved and modified until 1773. The interior of the office became richer and more majestic due to the addition of amber and gold... At the end of 1941, the ungrateful fellow countrymen of the Prussian monarch, the fascists, took the cabinet to Konigsberg, where it was dismantled until the end of the war. Then the traces of Friedrich's gift were lost in the labyrinths of the city's dungeons. This was probably the biggest theft in the total robbery of the Soviet Union. During the war, German raiders "took" 427 museums and art galleries, over 20 local history museums...

This is especially the case with the Amber Room. Many enthusiastic researchers have been searching for this unique work. But in vain. The mystery remains a mystery, although such venerable scientists as A. Malakhov, B. Naumenko and other researchers tried to shed light on it.

It is quite natural that the search engines ' efforts were concentrated in the city of Konigsberg (Kaliningrad), or rather in its countless multi-tiered dungeons.

According to experts, several underground tunnels branched off from the royal castle - the city - forming center-in different directions. Separate tunnels passed under the Pregolya River. After the war, the ruined castle was blown up, blocking the entrances, disrupting communications with the network of tunnels that led outside the city to the vast underground system between Berlin and East Prussia (Kaliningrad region).

Kaliningrad is an ancient port city, where multi-tiered dungeons are used for various purposes. The most intensive underground construction was carried out between the first and Second World Wars. Deep in the bowels, enterprises, transport tunnels, fuel storage facilities, secret bunkers of multi-tiered bedding were built, including under the bays. There was a pipeline system for supplying fuel from near Konigsberg to the area of the current port of Baltiysk. War veterans recall that ships in this city were refueled from underground fuel depots for a long time after the end of the war. When the fuel ran out, the filling stations were abandoned and new ones were built, since the old ones could not be operated further due to the lack of placement schemes. Currently, researchers searching for the Amber Room have used instruments to calculate the location of those containers that, after restoration, could serve our economy.

But our managers, judging by their reaction, do not care about profitable, cost-effective projects. How much money could be saved by putting into operation secret warehouse-type structures of the Wehrmacht, has anyone calculated? No, it's a pity. After all, how would the port capacity increase, what profits would be brought by underground communications? But this is, so to speak, a side effect of the search for the Amber Room. Now foreign dealers and treasure hunters have become more active. A few years ago, the California (USA) geophysical company Global Exploration (world search) conducted an expedition in the city and region. The search was led by former high-ranking CIA and FBI officials (Norman Scott, Robert Nehue...). The company intended to continue the work of the expedition further. Treasure hunters used ground-penetrating radars and other devices. It is possible that they relied on archival materials provided, apparently, by German specialists participating in the expedition. Such companies have recently appeared in the Kaliningrad region a lot.

The city administration, in order to get rid of the hassle associated with the search, simply walls up, blocks up the passages of underground communications messages, thereby delaying the desired moment of finding a unique room. Meanwhile, amateur prospectors are searching at their own risk. The closest attention of treasure seekers is drawn to the bunker, which was descended with our art historians by the keeper of the Amber Room, Dr. A. Rohde. He had tried to go down, but he had concealed the fact that the bunkers had secret passages leading to deeper underground horizons. There is evidence that at the end of the war A. Rode visited the area of Bagrationovsk, where he hid boxes of valuables in the dungeons of the castle. Our experts believe that there are also exhibits of Kiev museums and collections of icons. Enthusiasts, as a result of research, have identified several promising areas where boxes with panels and panels of the interior of the famous room are supposedly stored. We need to step up our search before foreign treasure hunters get ahead of us. Time doesn't wait.

Ivan KOLTSOV, Full Member of the Geographical Society of the Russian Academy of Sciences

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