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Dr Ivan Sautov (left), director of the Catherine Palace, signing the deal with German energy provider Ruhrgas AG executives to sponsor the reconstruction of the Amber Room

The Russians had already begun this huge project but had run out of money. On 6 September 1999, Ruhrgas AG representatives met Dr Ivan Sautov, director of the Catherine Palace, and the Russian Minister of Culture to sign with amber fountain pens a sponsorship deal worth 3.5 million dollars. The German government was peeved, sending its ambassador from Moscow to witness the occasion rather than its Minister of Culture from Berlin.

Eichwede smiles. 'Ruhrgas wanted a high-profile cultural project to buy into. Their first and only interest was a commercial one. The Amber Room was worth a fortune for Russian politicians and German businessmen.'

He stifles a yawn. 'It was exhausting. And then things got really complicated. Achterman and his stone mosaic reappeared. He wanted to reconsider the deal we had worked out on the back of the beer mat and eventually agreed to sell me the stone mosaic at 210,000 DMs. It was all incredibly secret. No one could know until the mosaic was back in Russia. The money was to come from Bremen businessmen. The German government could not be seen to pay.'

Eichwede called the Russian Deputy Minister of Culture in Moscow. '"I've got your missing mosaic," I told P. V Khoroshilov. He was shocked and said, "Maybe we can come to terms."' Khoroshilov secretly flew into Bremen and struck a deal: Hans Achterman's stone mosaic would be returned to St Petersburg and the 101 Bremen pictures stranded in the German Embassy in Moscow would be released to travel to Berlin. 'We said, "We get the drawings first and then you get the stone mosaic." Khoroshilov signed the deal.'

All Eichwede needed was Berlin's approval. He flings his arms into the air. 'They said no.' Having promised to return the stone mosaic to Russia, the German government now advised that it too had changed laws governing art and reparations. The Amber Room's stone mosaic had been put on a list of items banned from export. Eichwede says: I was on the verge of giving up when the Mayor of Bremen rang me and said, "Look, this is ridiculous. I'm flying tomorrow to Moscow anyway, with the mosaic."' Fearing a scandal, the German government capitulated, and on 30 April 2000 the Mayor of Bremen, the president of the city's Chamber of Commerce and the German Minister of Culture presented the mosaic to President Putin and brought home 101 Bremen drawings. (However, Viktor Baldin's collection of 364 Bremen drawings would remain in the St Petersburg Hermitage and the 'Trojan Gold' would stay locked in the Moscow's Pushkin Museum stores.)

Once the story of the Amber Room had popped out of its box again, it was impossible to force it back in. Treasure hunters returned to the Erzgebirge nature park in western Saxony with metal detectors and picks. Der Spiegel magazine announced it was funding digs in Kaliningrad, beneath the 'Monster' and on the junction of Steindamm Strasse and Lange Reihe. Baron von Falz-Fein began writing to all his old friends, asking them to renew their efforts to find the room. A Second World War veteran in Weimar claimed to have found evidence that the Amber Room was concealed in the tunnels that ran beneath the city. And a book dealer in Gottingen announced that he had discovered files that proved the Amber Room was buried in the Volpriehausen mine (where hobby-Historiker George Stein had tried to make the German story work, armed with documents suppied by the Stasi).

In St Petersburg, Dr Ivan Sautov announced that the new Amber Room would be opened on 31 May 2003 to mark the three-hundredth anniversary of the founding of that city.

Wolfgang Eichwede's telephone rings. He talks rapidly into the handset for ten minutes and then, after finishing the call, turns to us: 'The dealing is still going on. That was our Minister of Culture. He's been in St Petersburg