Divers have discovered a sunken ship that may contain the Amber Room

Irina Ziganshina

A cabinet decorated with amber, made by Prussian craftsmen in the 18th century and presented to Peter I, for a long time was considered the main decoration of the Catherine Palace, the summer residence of Russian emperors in Tsarskoe Selo.

During World War II, the Germans dismantled the room and transported it to Konigsberg, where she was last seen in April 1945, during the Soviet offensive. Since then, the room has disappeared without a trace, and there are still many versions explaining its disappearance. From quite realistic - that the room was burnt in a fire or hidden in a hidden cache, to conspiracy theories - that the Soviet authorities sold it to a certain American billionaire, thus paying for the lend-lease.

And here's a new version - Polish divers from the Baltictech group claim to have found the wreckage of a ship that may have transported treasures. “We have been looking for wreckage since last year, when we realized that at the bottom of the Baltic Sea there could be a clue to an interesting story,” says one of the divers, Tomas Stachura. We are talking about "Karlsruhe" - a ship that sailed from Konigsberg in 1945, and then Soviet military aircraft sank it off the coast of Poland. Divers claim that the ship is almost intact, and military weapons, china and many boxes with unknown contents were found in its holds, Reuters reported.

It is known that Karlsruhe took part in Operation Hannibal, one of the largest sea evacuations in history, which helped more than a million German soldiers and civilians from East Prussia to escape the Soviet offensive at the end of World War II. Documents from that time indicate that the ship hastily left Konigsberg with a heavy cargo and 1,083 passengers on board.