The search for the iconic Amber Room loot may be nearing its end, as Polish divers found sealed chests near the wreckage of a ship believed to have been carrying the Russian Tsars’ treasure looted by the Nazis during World War II.
German steamer Karlsruhe was sensationally located at the bottom of the Baltic Sea off the Polish coast in November. It sank in April 1945, during an attack by Soviet planes, while on a mission to evacuate the remaining Nazis from the city of Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad) before the arrival of the advancing Red Army.
The infamous Amber Room contents had been stored in Koenigsberg since 1941, but were snatched from the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo outside Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) by the invading German forces in 1945, and appeared to have vanished without a trace.
Scientists and treasure hunters have been fruitlessly searching for the Amber Room for the past 75 years, but many had expressed the belief that it was likely aboard the Karlsruhe.
On Monday, divers from the Baltictech team, which was behind the discovery of the Karlsruhe, returned to the sunken ship and performed a sonar survey of the area around it.
“As we suspected, around the wreck, and especially in front of the vessel’s beakhead, a lot of items from the ship’s interior have spilled out,” the divers said in a Facebook post.
The survey, carried out by a remotely operated underwater robot, which descended to the bottom, revealed at least 10 chests and “lots of other trinkets” that had fallen out of the opened boxes, they added.
One of the trunks had “special rubber seals, which gives us hope that there could be some valuable items inside,” the team revealed.
The divers suggested that among them could be “paintings,” but they could well turn out to be amber panels or something completely different.
The chamber, decorated with amber panels, complete with gold ornaments and mirrors, had been gifted to Peter the Great by Friedrich-Wilhelm I of Prussia in the early 18th century, becoming one of the most famous possessions of Russian royalty.
But the mystery won’t be solved just yet, as winter has already arrived and the research of the Karlsruhe’s wreck will be put on hold until April next year.
The Baltictech team said earlier that they won’t be able to salvage the ship’s cargo themselves. Being archeological divers, they’re allowed only to work at a depth of up to 40 meters, and the Karlsruhe has come to rest at more than 80 meters. Such an operation would require military divers and could cost millions, they warned.
However, descending to the seabed isn’t the only way to witness the Amber Room, as Russian craftsmen have created a replica of it, which now amazes tourists visiting the museum at the Catherine Palace.
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