There is such an occupation - treasure hunting … Surprisingly, in Russia it is quite widespread: for some - money, for others - romance. True, not in the capitals, but in the provinces. Why did it happen? Yes, because in the capitals any "self-made" excavations, searches for treasures are officially prohibited. But in the regions - please, dig as much as you like.
Not so long ago, one resident of the Nizhny Novgorod region dug up his garden and found a whole collection of coins and old tokens of 1751. On the embankment of Izhevsk, a bulldozer operator dug up a barrel with several hundred coins of the imperial minting. In Suzdal, a team of plumbers found more than 300 coins of the late 18th century in the ground.
So there are still places in the provinces where you can potentially actually find something. But do not flatter yourself, treasure hunters: some that have already become legendary, not found treasures have been searching for decades, if not centuries, but the "diggers" have no luck with large finds.
On the other hand, it is not even treasures that are lucky for small ones, but, so to speak, luggage. A friend of mine in the summer, in good weather, goes to the sandy beach on the White Sea in Severodvinsk … with a mine detector. A similar exotic figure in headphones with an electronic "squeak" on a stick, in fact, can be seen on more than one beach in Russia. He does not disclose his secret to anyone interested, but out of friendship he told me: yes, he is just looking for rings, chains, earrings and so on, lost by vacationers.
And what do you think - according to him, an expensive mine detector paid off in just two bathing seasons, although the “bathing” summer in the North is short, only two months at most. The occupation is interesting, exciting, as it turned out, profitable, and even sunbathing and bathing in plenty. How! Or he is looking for values at the request of those who have lost. Those thank you with money. But this is so, exotic. Real treasure hunters are skeptical of such "colleagues" and "do not hold" for their own.
There is even a list of territories potentially rich in treasures in Russia. More precisely, the legends about them. The famous Russian science fiction writer and public figure Alexander Tutov from Arkhangelsk has been heading a seasonal expedition for several years in search of the legendary treasure of Ermak. Here's what he said in an interview with a reporter:
By the way, it is believed among treasure hunters that searching for a treasure just for the sake of enrichment is simply unprofitable - it's not for you to fumble with a mine detector on the beach. However, every seeker-digger still dreams in the depths of his soul to find his big treasure, even among those legendary ones who have been looking for long ago.
On the Internet, there are several references to hoards in the Russian outback waiting to be discovered. The story of each of them is akin to a little detective story or a scenario of a historical, excuse me, an action movie. Here are some of the "storerooms" of legend.
Some Far Eastern scuba divers have been unsuccessfully searching for gold from a steamer that sank on October 7, 1906 in the Ussuri Bay for many years. The steamer went from Vladivostok to the Sukhodol Bay (at that time it was called Gankgouzy) and carried about three hundred passengers, mail and money. The ship ran into a mine, a "present" of the recently ended Russian-Japanese war. Only fifteen people managed to escape.
A steamer sank - sadly, of course, but what can you do. But in 1913, the representative of the merchant Varyagin, who owned the ship, in his petition to the local governor-general, asked to compensate for the 90 thousand rubles transported on the ship in gold and some "especially valuable cargo."
Having found out about that, the ship-lifting masters at first seemed to be "excited", but soon the First World War broke out, and attempts to raise, yes, in fact, just to find the "golden steamer" at the bottom were never made. At today's prices, the gold left on the sunken ship "pulls" several million dollars! Right now, scuba divers are looking for the sunken ship where it went to the bottom: in the Ussuri Bay, between the Three Stones section, Mount Vargli and Sukhodol Bay.
Books have been written about Kolchak's gold, and films have been made. This story is, judging by the references on the Internet, one of the most popular among our treasure hunters. There are many versions and directions of search. From historical primary sources it is known that in 1918 in Omsk, Admiral Kolchak was proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia and his power was backed up by a large amount of gold previously exported from Kazan.
The Omsk branch of the state bank has estimated the value of the stock at 650 million rubles. In 1921, Kolchak's power fell, the Czechoslovak corps gave gold to the Bolsheviks in exchange for guarantees of the unhindered evacuation of the corps from Russia. But it turned out that the number of ingots was much smaller. The fortune itself was already estimated at 400 million. But what happened to 250 million gold, remained unclear. On this basis, many versions have appeared.
The most common version is as follows: not far from Kemerovo, at the Taiga station, gold was unloaded and buried. This version is supported by the fact that at the beginning of 1941 the omniscient NKVD called one of the witnesses of those events from Estonia to help the investigators in their search. But so far no one has found anything, although diggers are constantly observed in those places.
They are still looking for the treasure of a rich certain breeder near Tula. The background is as follows: in the second half of the 18th century, a wealthy Tula industrialist Andrey Batashev founded the village of Gus-Zhelezny in the Ryazan province. The breeder himself, according to eyewitnesses, eventually retired, leaving the industry to his brother Ivan, and eventually turned into a local robber.
But the breeder-robber was patronized by Prince Potemkin himself, so the authorities did not have any special questions. But after the death of the Empress's favorite, a check came to him. But no incalculable wealth was ever found in the richest man in the country at that time. Batashev without a patron quickly turned into a hermit, having died in his home in 1799. Until now, enthusiasts are digging around in the vicinity of his former estate, but so far they have not found anything.
When Hitler's troops attacked Smolensk, bank values were taken out of the defended city in a great hurry. At the beginning of August 1941, a convoy of six trucks went to Vyazma, but was fired upon at the Solovyov crossing. As a result, only three cars reached the nearest village of Otnosovo. Where did the rest go?
It is believed that it was these machines that took out values from the bank of Smolensk. To prevent the enemy from getting the bank gold - coins and bars - they buried it. And everyone who buried it, that is, soldiers and officers, died in the Great Patriotic War, there is no one to ask. It is believed that the estimated cost of the treasure, which was buried in the vicinity of the village of Otnosovo, Smolensk region, at today's prices is about 6.5 million dollars.
In the Time of Troubles (early 1600s), the Polish king Sigismund sent a wagon train of more than nine hundred carts from plundered Moscow to Warsaw. There is an entry about this on a copper plate in Latin and Polish, which is located in a museum in Warsaw. A secretly made list from it, translated into Russian, is distributed among Russian treasure seekers. But, despite the fact that the letter of the Polish king contains rather clear signs of a buried treasure - “the treasures are hidden 650 meters from the churchyard of Nicholas the Wonderworker Lapotny, which stands on the Khvorostyanka river at the junction of Mozhaisky and Medynsky districts” - they have not yet been found … But they dig, dig …
Until now, many legends, epics and songs about the dashing robber Kudeyar, who "spoiled" in these places, are circulating in the Saratov region. Like, he shed a lot of blood, collected a lot of prey and buried it in the coveted place. Most often, treasure hunters turn their eyes to the Kudeyarova Gora cave, near the village of Lokh.
It is believed that it was in it that the robber hid his treasures. According to another version, to the east of Shatura in the Moscow region, in the region of lakes Karasovo, Dolgoe and Velikoye, there is a mysterious place called Vorui-town, where the legendary chieftain could also hide his treasures. But again, no one has found anything there yet.
Or such a fact. During World War II, allied aviation, which bombed everything that belonged to Japan in the Pacific Ocean, bypassed the uninhabited island of Matua from the Kuril ridge. And when the war ended in 1945, the island went to the USSR, and President Truman suddenly turned to Stalin with a very unexpected request - to provide the United States with the island of Matua. The leader of the people did not think for a long time and refused to the then allies.
So, some researchers suggest that secret laboratories are located there, developing some kind of super-secret weapon that was never used during the war. But others are convinced that the main gold reserves of Imperial Japan are hidden there, never found by the Americans in banks on the "main" Japanese islands of Honshu and Hakkaido. That's why the Japanese are so worried about the Kurils …
In general, we kind of suggested where to look. Treasure hunters, for shovels!
ANDREY MIKHAILOV