This silver is now considered less valuable than gold, but in ancient times everything was different. Native silver is rare, and its extraction from ores becomes possible only at a certain technical level of development of society. Silver does not oxidize under normal conditions, has a beautiful white color and becomes shiny when polished.
The Yukaghir people …
For thousands of years, silver money has been a common means of payment in many countries - first in bars, cakes and bars, and then in the form of coins of various denominations. Rus' trade deals with other countries have always required silver. During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, Russia became a great power, and information about a possible
the presence of silver ores in its depths was perceived by the sovereign as the most important messages.
The Yakutsk prison became the starting point of the Cossacks in their campaigns for precious metal. The report that "the Yukaghir people, sir, have silver," came from Posnik Ivanov and Anika Nikitin, who had infiltrated Indigirka. Pathfinder, Cossack foreman Elisey Buza on the Yana River met with Yukaghirs, who had silver jewelry. He captured the shaman Bigley and brought him to Yakutsk. During interrogation, the shaman said that the silver was brought from the area east of Indigirka. But where and how to look for him in these endless expanses, it was unclear. Cossacks constantly risked their lives, knew how to fight and collect yasak. They had enough trouble: cold, hunger, scurvy, battles with "foreigners" and the cruel power of the governors and their chieftains. All researchers noted the courage and dexterity of the explorers … And here miners were required.
Information about silver in Chukotka was contradictory. Elisey Buza returned from a new campaign and brought with him three Yukaghir hostages. Their testimony alarmed the whole of Yakutsk. They said that the Neroga River flows near the Indigirka, and at its mouth, not far from the sea, there is silver in a cliff above the river.
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First search
The Yakut voivode Pyotr Petrovich Golovin did a lot of outrages and realized that the discovery of the source of silver could save him from punishment. He immediately equipped the expedition of Dmitry Zyryan with the order: “About that river Neroga, to check in with all foreigners, by all sorts of measures, to ask cruelly if there is such a Neroga? And if there is, and right on it there is silver ore. " And in the summer, Golovin sent the customs kisser Epifan Volynkin with instructions to investigate the testimony of the Yukaghirs in the strictest manner and promised the Cossacks in the distant Indigirsky winter hut, since "the sovereign needs silver ore."
The Kolyma prince Porocha wandered to the Nizhne-Indigirsky winter quarters. He spoke about the riches of the Kolyma River, its tributaries and the Chyundon River, which flows into the Sea of Okhotsk. And also about the fact that beyond the Kolyma there is the Pogycha river, on which there is a mountain, and in it - silver. This river originates in the same place as the Chyundong River, which flows into the Kolyma. In the upper reaches of the Chyundon live not Yukaghirs, but "people of their own kind", and "their faces are written," that is, they are tattooed. They obtain silver and trade it with the Nutt tribe living in Chyundong. The prince (head of the clan) Shenkodey gave similar testimony.
Pilahuerty Nake
In September 1646 Porochy's testimony about the "mysterious, not melting soft mountain", in Chukchi Pilahuerti Neyka, was recorded from his words by the explorer and navigator Ivan Rodionovich Erastov: "Silver hangs on the trough with snot. Arrows are fired from bows at that silver, and that silver is thrown into the boats by the talented (lucky). Silver circles were made of silver and hung around their collars."
A large gang of Cossacks and commercial people, led by Erastov, submitted a petition to the new voivode Vasily Nikitich Pushkin. He ordered to give them a monetary and bread salary for two years and "on that river Potycha for those new and not yasak people, bringing the tsar's hand under the tsar's hand and letting go for yasak collection." Although there was no talk about silver, it is clear that it was the main goal. In case of failure, the voivode would have to answer with his head for the money spent in vain, and so all the costs - for collecting yasak.
Preparations went on feverishly, but suddenly the governor reversed his decision. He put his faithful man Mikhail Stadukhin at the head of the search engines, who with his gang soon became a complete master in the Kolyma and behaved cruelly and ugly. He did not give life to Semyon Dezhnev, who was wintering on Anadyr, sometimes beat him, forced him to flee from his violence to look for the Penzhina River, and Semyon almost died. Stadukhin took two fully equipped kochas from the merchants and set off by sea in search of the coveted Pogycha River. For seven days they sailed off the rocky shores of Chukotka, running out of food supplies. In a battle with local residents, two Koryaks were captured, but they said that they did not know any big river ahead.
In the fall of 1654, Stadukhin returned to the Nizhne-Kolyma winter hut with a large load of precious walrus bone, which he sent to Yakutsk. And he himself, although he found a "corga" - a walrus rookery, in spite of the enormous value of the walrus bone, withdrew from its prey. He probably wanted to find silver on the Pogycha River. Already no one remembered the Neroga River (probably the Chaun River).
The only Nerchinsk silver mine in Transbaikalia was weak and did not meet the needs of the state. But then a stream of silver from the Altai mines poured into the royal treasury, and the mountain in distant Chukotka was forgotten. She became legendary, and she was remembered only occasionally.
Search for Uvarov
In 1930, Vasily Fedorovich Uvarov, an authorized representative of the Kamchatka Joint Stock Company (AKO), arrived in Anadyr. On one of his trips, he heard from the shepherds about the "silver mountain" in the wilds of the Anadyr ridge. The wealthy Chukchi Ivan Shitikov told Uvarov that the Chukchi and Lamuts had known her for a long time. The mountain is almost entirely composed of native silver and is located somewhere on the watershed of Anyui and Chaun, far away from the usual paths. People who have visited these places can be counted on one hand. Lamuts loved jewelry - some of them had silver plaques on their chests. They tried to pay tribute to Alexander III in silver, but the tsarist officials demanded furs, and the offended Lamut did not offer it anymore.
Shitikov advised Uvarov to contact the elder of the Lamut clan, Konstantin Dekhlyanka. He said that on the watershed between Sukhoi Anyui and Chaun there is a metal mountain 200 yards high, which is cut with a knife, and the cut has a bright shine. At its top there is a small lake covered with white foam like ice. The mountain stands at the edge of the forests, and bizarrely shaped icicles hang from it that do not melt in the sun. Uvarov urgently reported everything to Moscow, to the Geological Committee. From there they offered to deliver them samples at their expense. Uvarov asked the Lamuts, and they would bring him samples of silver from the mountain, and he handed them over to the AKO office in Anadyr. Where they then went, he does not know. He also invited Konstantin Dekhlyanka to Zinovy Nikulin's house in Ust-Belaya, where the elder's story about the silver mountain, recorded as an act of testimony, was assured by the NKVD authorized representative Korzh. In 1932, Uvarov was fired from his job, and he ended up in Ukraine.
Assumptions and facts
The assessments of archival information by historians and experts of the North are contradictory. Maps of the 17th-18th centuries are approximate, the north on them is at the bottom, which often confuses us. The names of many rivers are the same and are repeated in different places in Chukotka, at a decent distance from each other. Even modern maps have two Khetas, two Myaundzhi, two Khattynakhs, etc. There is even a Kamchatka river in the Indigirka area. Therefore, it is necessary to be very careful about geographical information in ancient documents.
Candidate of Historical Sciences S. I. Baskin studied archival documents about the explorers. He believes that Chyundon is Anyui, and Neroga, or Neloga, is Baranikha or Nera, flowing into the Indigirka, or maybe Nerega, the right tributary of the Bahapcha. And the "painted faces" are the Chukchi, who tattooed their faces until the 20th century.
In 1952, Uvarov again began to write about the need to search for the Silver Mountain, and an order was sent to Magadan to check Uvarov's application, but with a postscript: along the way with the main job, that is, if you find it, it's good, but there is no trial. In a short summer period, it is not easy for geological parties loaded with an extensive program-plan to find time and go away from the route. In 1967, the geologists of the Seimchan party, looking for gold, found two silver nuggets of 50 grams each in the stream. Native silver is often present in significant quantities in samples of gold, polymetallic, tungsten and tin deposits of Chukotka. In samples from Iultinskoye - up to 494.2 g / t, in others - it reaches 1481 g / t, and already economically profitable for exploitation ore with a silver content of 200 g / t. And the Kheta mine is located near Nerega, Valkumey - at the Chaunskaya Bay.
The search for the silver mountain is hindered by … gold. It is easier to mine, and it is valued ten times more. It is very difficult to search for silver along the way in endless spaces. There have been several attempts to find the Silver Mountain by rare amateur enthusiasts, limited in funds, equipment and time. Geologists do not deny the existence of the mountain, and it really exists. Native silver is rarely found in very large masses. The largest known nugget weighed 120 tons (British Columbia, 1898) and was slightly taller than a human being. And here is a whole mountain! Now the possibilities of geologists have grown immeasurably, and if they are given the task of finding the legendary mountain, they will certainly find it.
Valery KUKARENKO