"Oh, Odessa, cheerful southern region, live, my Odessa, live and prosper." Odessa has always been a well-to-do city, and its inhabitants spent the day and night looking forward to increasing their wealth. Each inhabitant of Odessa had "five kopecks" set aside for a "rainy day". But the restless life with frequent changes of power did not allow the citizens of Odessa to calmly accumulate wealth. Therefore, the city is full of treasures that are waiting for their time.
GOLDEN CHUTE
A long time ago there were rumors in Odessa that one of the treasures was located in … the supporting structure of the Humpbacked Bridge, built in 1890. Allegedly, a crutch of pure gold was driven into one of the rivets during the construction of the bridge. Who spared no expense for such a luxury is a big mystery. Either the bridge engineer wanted to save the hard earned money for the future, or the precious metal part was ordered to be cast in the city duma, wanting to show the whole world how rich Odessa is. One way or another, from time to time, gullible treasure hunters try to look for the gold rivet, scraping paint from the metal caps of the bridge crutches. So if the former mayors of Odessa had good intentions, now they are going sideways. Every year from the city treasury has to spend a lot of money to repair scratched structures. Apparentlythis will continue until some lucky one finds a precious part. By the way, in the first years after the construction of the bridge, the inhabitants of Odessa called it "baronial" - in honor of the head and actually the first creator of the Odessa railway, Baron Karl Ungern von Sternberg. It is curious that tram rails were embedded in the overpass for strength. But the tram never went across the bridge.
JAPAN'S TESTAMENT
In May 1919, the legendary Odessa bandit and anarchist Mikhail Vinnitsky, nicknamed Yaponchik, decided to go over to the side of the Bolsheviks and formed the 54th Lenin Soviet revolutionary regiment from robbers and thieves. Rumor has it that the famous criminal put together his "team" to divert his eyes. Say, he had so much good that it was possible to hide it only by obtaining some kind of "indulgence" from the authorities. This sly Jap did it. According to legend, before leaving for the front, the thief hid the loot in one of the underground passages in the catacombs. And Yaponchik had wealth - mom, do not cry! From the traders of Privoz alone, he collected tribute every day through his assistants! But there were also ships that came to the port of Odessa illegally. And all the owners of these ships were forced to pay Yaponchik for "free navigation." Besides,Yaponchik's gang repeatedly robbed Odessa banks. And quite successfully! So, on March 12, 1918, the amount of production amounted to more than 1 million rubles in gold and banknotes! And how many such sorties there were! In general, Yaponchik made a huge fortune. But the failed Odessa rockefeller was shot by the Chekists while fleeing from the front line. Since then, all and sundry began to look for the caches of the famous bandit. But apart from rusty weapons, nothing has yet been found. However, it is possible that Yaponchik's treasure is still waiting for its Heinrich Schliemann. Since then, all and sundry began to look for the caches of the famous bandit. But apart from rusty weapons, nothing has yet been found. However, it is possible that Yaponchik's treasure is still waiting for its Heinrich Schliemann. Since then, all and sundry began to look for the caches of the famous bandit. But apart from rusty weapons, nothing has yet been found. However, it is possible that Yaponchik's treasure is still waiting for its Heinrich Schliemann.
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"TITANIC" ON THE FOUNTAIN
Rumors have been circulating in Odessa for a long time that the golden "Titanic" is hidden in the catacombs on the Fontanka. A miniature copy of the famous ship was cast by one overseas rich man who was lucky enough to survive the crash. The statuette went to an Odessa sailor who took part in the rescue operation. Going to the front in 1941, the sailor allegedly hid the golden boat in the basement of his house until better times. Treasure hunters made repeated attempts to find the Titanic, but so far the fortune has not smiled at anyone.
No less famous treasure is located somewhere in the legendary Odessa Privoz market. There he was buried in the late 1920s by one of the directors, Yakov Pilerman. The market director is a bread-and-butter job, and even more so in Odessa. The enterprising Yashka Pilerman quickly realized what horizons the NEP with its free trade opened up for him. It was a sin not to take advantage of the cunning Odessa citizen! By the way, the image of the underground millionaire citizen Koreiko from Ilf and Petrov's The Golden Calf was partly copied from him, from Yashka Pilerman. His vigorous activity began even before the revolution with petty scams such as selling a fake “real gold watch to the Bure” for just two rubles and snatching gold mines in Chukotka to visitors. But these were all small things! Pilerman really turned around when he began to run the famous bazaar. That's where the Klondike was!First of all, the fraudster imposed a tribute on everyone. Then Yashka undertook a reconstruction that stretched out for the entire period of his rule on Privoz. New trading buildings and capital stalls did not appear on the market, but hundreds of thousands of budget rubles settled in the pocket of the genius of the scam. The theft of government money was the last straw that overflowed the government's patience. They decided to arrest Pilerman. However, the swindler at the last moment managed to escape from Odessa with his family. Already at the border with Romania, they were detained by border guards who found several kilograms of gold, precious stones and a large amount of foreign currency. Yakov himself was shot by the verdict of the tribunal, and his wife and son were exiled to Siberia. Before the execution, the swindler confessed that he had buried most of his wealth in the market. The Chekists dug the entire Privoz - unsuccessfully. Since then, the bike about the Privoz treasures has been walking around Odessa. From time to time in the mornings, traders find here and there dug holes.
TURKISH TRACE AND JEWELED BOTTLES
The treasury of the entire Turkish fleet, which was on the 74-gun warship Kapudania, in 1788 sank with it near the Snake Island. The flagship of the Turkish squadron was sunk by the famous Russian admiral Fyodor Ushakov on the frigate "St. Paul" during the Russian-Turkish war. Recently, archaeologists have discovered the place where the Turks went to the bottom. And immediately hope dawned on the Odessa treasure hunters. Moreover, now not only money is valuable, but also all the items that could be found on the sunken ship. Therefore, Odessa divers sleep and see how Turkish treasures are raised to the surface of the water. Vlad Tobak, senior instructor of the Odessa International School of Diving "Cousteau", admits: "I have a dream to find this ship and make a museum out of it." According to him, currently there are many who want to find "Capudania"but they all hunt for her to get rich.
Another cherished desire of Odessa divers is to find the disappeared collection of Tairov wines. During the Second World War, the management of the Tairovsky winery decided to hide the collection of rare wines from the Nazis. The bottles were treated as if they were saving the immortal masterpieces of the Hermitage: they were packed in special boxes, manually loaded onto a barge. Having escaped from the harbor of besieged Odessa, the convoy was hit by enemy aircraft and sank somewhere off the coast of Ochakov. For more than fifty years, Tairov's enoteca was considered lost irretrievably. Nowadays, the excitement around her flares up with renewed vigor. Divers seem to have found a place where an invaluable collection rests at the bottom of the Black Sea, but not a single precious bottle has ever seen the light of day.
Oksana PROSKURNYA