Description

The Amber Museum is located in the central part of the city of Kaliningrad in a castle of the mid-19th century (1853), one of the fortifications of the old Konigsberg connected with the defensive reinforcements of the city that were named after the Prussian Marshal Friedrich Karl Don, the head of the imperial army in the war of liberation against the Napoleonic invasion. The museum was opened in 1979, after a major restoration, because the tower " Don" had a lot of damage during the Second World War. It is developed on three floors with 28 rooms on a total area of 1,000 m2, it houses 16,000 artistic objects in Amber, however, only 2,000 are exhibited. The Museum is divided into several sections and of particular interest are the rooms where historical-archaeological artifacts are exhibited: jewelry and amber objects from the Neolithic period (4th-2nd millennium BC). In addition to jewelry containing prehistoric insects, one of the most fascinating works housed in this museum is an amber and ivory chalice decorated with four scenes depicting Christopher Columbus, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Of particular value are the unique works of the masters of the 17th-18th centuries, donated to the museum by the Chamber of the Kremlin Armory in Moscow in 1978. There are also modern copies of ancient amber objects, recreated from fragments of the famous "Amber Room" disappeared during World War II, stolen by the Germans and in other rooms you can see original objects of the 19th - 20th centuries, with the works of contemporary artists from Russia, Germany, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, USA, France, Japan. In the museum are collected unique pieces such as a nugget weighing 4 kg and 280, but the real treasure of the museum is the amber chandelier created by a group of artists, presumably in the early fifties, in the middle of the Stalinist era and made in the Empire style, weighing 22 kilos, it is said that the chandelier was made as a luxury gift for some foreign guest, just as it happened with the precious atomic icebreaker "Lenin", made for the American general Eisenhower, by order of Nikita Kruscev, of which in the museum exhibits a copy.