Amber Museum Kaliningrad

Something like nine tenths of the world's known amber lies in a blue earth layer near Yantarny on this coast, and it has been collected here since prehistory and mined industrially since the nineteenth century. The museum opened in 1979 in the Dohna Tower, a round brick artillery tower of the 1850s from the Koenigsberg defences, and the thick walls and vaulted rooms suit the material. It shows raw amber in a range of colours from near white to almost black, inclusions of insects and plants trapped in resin some forty million years ago including a lizard, and worked objects from Neolithic pendants through baroque caskets and church pieces to Soviet and contemporary work. The Amber Room, made for Prussia and given to Russia, was lost from Koenigsberg in 1945 and never found; the museum covers the story and shows fragments and reconstruction material rather than the room, which is in Pushkin near St Petersburg as a modern recreation.

History

The museum was set up in Kaliningrad because more than 90% of the world's known Baltic amber lies near Yantarny. After ten years of restoring the old fortification from 1969, it opened on 29 December 1979 as a branch of the regional history and art museum, and it now holds about 14,000 pieces, including more than 3,000 inclusions and the world's second-largest piece of amber (Wikipedia, Kaliningrad Regional Amber Museum).

Highlights

• The inclusions - insects, plants and a lizard trapped in resin around forty million years ago.
• The colour range - raw amber from near white through honey to almost black.
• The Dohna Tower - an 1850s Prussian artillery tower housing the collection.
• The Amber Room story - the loss from Koenigsberg in 1945, told with fragments and documents.

When to go

All year. Two hours. Closed Mondays.

Practical notes

The Amber Room itself is not here and never was recovered; the recreation is near St Petersburg. Labelling is largely Russian. Amber sold on the street is often pressed or synthetic; the museum shop and the Yantarny works are safer. The tower's rooms are small and get crowded.

Nearby

Verkhneye lake is outside the door; the Koenigsberg cathedral is a short ride into the centre.

Key facts