The Amber Room_ The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure - Cathy Scott-Clark [1]
Caricature of Anatoly Kuchumov with a wheelbarrow of books (TGALI)
Anatoly Kuchumov and colleagues at Pavlovsk Palace (Albina Vasiliava archive)
Victorious Soviet troops pose in front of the Berlin Reichstag, 1945 (Kaliningrad City Museum) 146 Gerhard Strauss (Avenir Ovsianov archive)
Doodle of Anatoly Kuchumov searching for the Amber Room with a magnifying glass, 1949 (TGALI)
Doodle sent to Anatoly Kuchumov, depicting clues as to the postwar location of the Amber Room, 1949 (TGALI)
Friedrich Henkensiefken (MPR Productions) 165 Intelligence files of the Stasi, the East German secret police, bundled up ready for shredding, January 1990 (Die Bundesbeauftragte fiir die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdientes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Berlin, Germany - BStU)
Surrender of Konigsberg, April 1945 (Giinter Wermusch archive)
Bernsteinzimmer Report, by Paul Enke, 1986 (British Library, London)
Paul Enke, c.1960 (BStU)
The Stasi files (BStU)
Dr Ernst-Otto Count zu Solms Laubach (Avenir Ovsianov archive)
Giinter Wermusch (Giinter Wermusch archive)
News footage of the trial of Erich Koch in Warsaw, 1959 (MPR Productions)
Art works stolen by the Nazis, hidden in German mines and found by American troops in April 1945 (Kali und Salz GmbH, Erlebnis Bergwerk Merkers, Thuringin, Germany)
George Stein (Avenir Ovsianov archive)
Viktor Chebrikov, KGB chairman, with Erich Mielke, East Germany's Stasi chief, at Stasi headquarters, East Berlin, 1987 (BStU)
Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein reporting at the 1936 Munich Olympics (Falz-Fein archive, Liechtenstein)
Julian Semyonov (Falz-Fein archive, Liechtenstein)
Marion Donhoff (Avenir Ovsianov archive)
Police photograph of the body of George Stein, 20 August 1987 (MPR Productions)
Pre-war Konigsberg (Konigsberg City Museum)
The 'Monster' (Catherine Scott-Clark)
The amber coastline of the Samland Peninsula (Catherine Scott-Clark)
Avenir Ovsianov, digging for the Amber Room in Kaliningrad Province, 1970s (Avenir Ovsianov archive)
Kaliningrad Geological Archaeological Expedition team photograph (Avenir Ovsianov archive)
Anatoly Kuchumov reading in the mauve boudoir of Empress Alexandra, Alexander Palace, Pushkin, 1940 (Vica Plauda archive)
Dr Ivan Sautov, director of the Catherine Palace, signing the deal with German energy provider Ruhrgas AG executives to sponsor the reconstruction of the Amber Room. From left to right: Dr Ivan Sautov; Vladimir Yegorov, former Minister for Cultural Affairs of the Russian Federation; Mr Friedrich Spaeth, former Chairman of the Ruhrgas AG Executive Board and Dr H. C. Achim Middelschulte, Member of the Ruhrgas AG Executive Board.
Damaged Monighetti staircase, Catherine Palace, 1945
Insect in amber
Last surviving pieces of the Amber Room (Giinter Wermusch archive)
Acknowledgements
In the face of recalcitrant institutions, long journeys, sub-zero temperatures and many other excuses, a dedicated group of Russian curators, Red Army veterans, academics, friends and family kept us sane and helped us complete this book.
Galya and Kolya, Vova and Tanya in St Petersburg made a great contribution to our Russian work. They will not agree, or even like everything we have written, but despite this we hope we can still eat pickled mushrooms together. Vladimir Telemakov was endlessly generous with his writings, which have yet to find a publisher, and has a remarkable memory and passion for Russian culture. A friend in the Hermitage found us somewhere to stay and we apologize for being terrified by her apartment.
A close circle of curators in St Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo, including Valeria Bilanina, Albina Vasiliava and Albina Alya, spent hours recounting anecdotes as well as searching out journals, books and addresses. Nadezda Voronova shared her family photos with us and told stories about her father, M. G. Voronov, and his close colleague Anatoly Kuchumov. Vica Plauda had wonderful memories of growing up with Kuchumov,