The Amber Room_ The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure - Cathy Scott-Clark [19]
Kedrinsky wipes a winter sweat from his forehead. 'By 24 June 1941 everyone was glued to the radio. Scouring the Leningradskaya Pravda. Reading and rereading Izvestiya. Even the smallest piece of information was better than nothing. But there was no comfort for poor old Leningrad.' As the Russians liked to say, there was no 'truth' in the News and no 'news' in the Truth.36
But then came some direction from the city authorities. Quoting Trotsky's instructions during the Civil War, citizens were ordered to begin transforming Leningrad into 'an enigma, a threat or a mortal danger'.
Kedrinsky recalls: 'Posters appealed for help to save the Motherland and work details were issued. Everyone fell in, we all began digging and building. Out in the countryside, even as the fascists neared, women and men built tank traps and trenches with their bare hands. For fifteen hours at a time. Barrage balloons blocked out the sun.'
Netting obscured monuments and statues. Catherine the Great's bronze horseman beside the River Neva became a pyramid of sandbags. Mountaineers scaled the golden pinnacle of the Peter Paul Cathedral on the opposite bank to throw camouflage over it. 'Instead of defending my diploma, I defended the city,' Kedrinsky says darkly. He was ordered to the far end of Moskovsky Prospekt with a transport of 'steel hedgehogs' that the Red Army hoped would slow the Nazi tank advance. 'On every roof we built anti-aircraft emplacements.'
And beyond, towards the palaces of Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk, was a strangled strip of deserted dachas and allotments overlooking the city. They had been abandoned by everyone apart from Kuchumov and his hand-picked team, who were still packing the treasures of the tsars. They would be the first to feel the full force of the Nazi invasion whenever it came.
But what of the Amber Room, we ask?
Kedrinsky looks irritated to have been snapped back from his past. But he cannot leave the question unanswered. He is, after all, the oracle of the Catherine Palace. And so he slyly slides papers out from under his blotter. 'You must understand that this is material entrusted to me for my book, my history of the Great Task. These are the last words written by Kuchumov before we fought for our lives.'
He begins to read from Kuchumov's diary: '"An order came from LenGorlsPolKom. About the Amber Room. Instructions are to execute measures to conceal this unique treasure in its place rather than risk damage."'
Kuchumov's recommendation to abandon the evacuation of the Amber Room had been sanctioned. He was to hide it where it was, constructing another room on top of it. '"Wadding was delivered from the sewing factory along with sheets of gauze."' The amber panels were carefully covered in muslin cloth and then a layer of vatzim [cotton padding]. The entire room was then redecorated with hessian strips. Its inlaid parquet floor made from rare, coloured woods was strewn with sand. Water was placed inside every vase too large to be evacuated so that they might absorb a blast. The windows were criss-crossed with tape and then boarded up from the inside. The wall-mounted bronze candelabras were removed and placed in boxes, as were four Florentine stone mosaics that depicted the senses and were hooked on to the amber panels. Twelve chairs, three card tables, two chests of drawers, a spittoon and an icon were also left behind.
Kedrinsky looks up from the pages: 'Kuchumov could do no more and anyhow new orders came for him.' He continues reading from the diary.
Comrade Ladukhin told Kuchumov that he was no longer needed at the palaces. The young curator's thoughts must have turned immediately to the front, where tens of thousands of under-prepared young soldiers