The Amber Room

What do we love more than pirate treasure? How about Nazi gold? In 1716, the king of Prussia presented the Amber Room to Russian Czar Peter the Great. Later Catherine the Great commissioned craftsmen to embellish the room and moved it from the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to her summer home in Tsarskoye Selo. It was finished in 1770 and was illuminated by 565 candles whose light was reflected in the warm gold surface of the amber and sparkled in the mirrors, gilt, and mosaics. Then the Nazis stole during WW2. Pieces keep turning up here and there, but there is little hope of ever recovering the entire room.