History has not brought to us reliable information about the time of the appearance of professional treasure hunters in Russia. It is only known that already in the 15th century there were people specializing in the search for ancient "baggage" and "treasures". By today's standards, they can be considered romantic adventurers, for such an occupation did not promise much wealth, but on the other hand, it was fraught with many dangers both from the tate robbers and the sovereign people. Both of them zealously hunted for treasure hunters in order to take their prey from them if they were successful.
At a later time, there was a clear specialization among professional treasure hunters, mainly in accordance with the geography of trade routes. However, sometimes they neglected her and went to the Wild Field. As the rumor asserted, "in the steppe there are thousands of stone women, and under each rich" load "tatami are buried."
The treasures in the Wild Field, due to its geographical position, were really great many hidden away. But not only robbers. For such a huge amount of "treasures", a whole army of "dashing people" would be needed, which should not have given passage to either horse or foot.
In fact, everything was different. Historically, the Wild Field was the name of the endless steppe between the Don, the Upper Oka and the left tributaries of the Desna and the Dnieper, that is, the present Poltava and Sumy, Kharkov, Belgorod, Kursk, Lipetsk and Voronezh regions. It was the land of continuous wars, which, according to Ivan Bunin, “was the first to breathe in the storm, dust and cold from under the formidable Asian clouds that came to Russia every now and then, the first to see the glow of the terrible night and day conflagrations that they burned, the first to let Moscow know about the coming trouble and was the first to lay down the bones for it."
There, on the Don, thousands of Russian people, mostly fugitive peasants and slaves, have long sought to become free Cossacks. They founded "zasechnye towns", which served as the forward security line of the Russian state. Their main occupation was agriculture, which, of course, could not become a source of such great wealth that it was worth burying them in the ground. Moreover, the Crimean horde constantly raided, ravaging, and even burning to ashes many towns and settlements in the Wild Field. And the merchants tried to overcome it not one by one, but in caravans with strong guards.
It turns out that there was simply no one to rob the robbers. But then where did the treasures come from?
Their appearance can be easily explained. The free people there, nicknamed the Cossacks, often raided Turkish settlements on the shores of the Sea of Azov on their dilapidated planes. Therefore, strictly speaking, they cannot be considered robbers, although on occasion they were not averse to robbing a merchant caravan. Upon their return, the Cossacks blew the swag - they divided the booty taken. Soft "junk" - silk, velvet, expensive clothes - were sold to visiting merchants. But gold and jewelry were hidden until the time when old age approaches and it will no longer be possible to participate in dangerous campaigns. And although the Cossack usually confided in one or two of his closest comrades, where he buried his "luggage", many treasures remained unclaimed. After all, not a single raid was complete without losses in battles with the Tatars. And few survived to the "retirement age".
According to legend, one of the most successful was the chieftain Kunam. On the high right bank of the Don, he founded a small town surrounded by an earthen rampart. From there, Kunam, together with his sons Tyapka and Rusa, went on raids on the Basurman more than once and always returned with a rich swag, which he hid in a secret cave. Already in old age, the chieftain fell in a battle with the Tatar hero. Above his grave, the sons poured a mound on the right bank of the Beautiful Sword River at its depression in the Don.
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After the death of his father, Tyapka stood at the head of the band of desperate daredevils - this nickname, given to him in his youth, meant something like "grunt". It is immortalized in the name of Tyapkina Mountain in the center of the city, where Lebedyan was founded in the 17th century. With courage and luck, the son went to his father. So the secret cave was constantly replenished with rich booty. But once, as the legend says, Tyapka had a sign that changed his whole subsequent life.
Not far from these places in the Romantsevsky forest lived the hermit Peter, known throughout the Ryazan land for his asceticism. Tyapka and Rusa came to the saint, took monastic tonsure from him and decided to settle nearby. The brothers founded the monastery, in which their former comrades, who had also abandoned the predatory trade, became novices. To atone for his sins in 1353, Tyapka spent part of the previously stolen wealth on the construction of the Elias Church.
However, at that turbulent time, such monasteries were also guard posts, where the monks lived not so much according to the monastery charter, but according to the charter of a military camp awaiting an attack by a dangerous enemy - the Crimean horde. Tyapka and the novices had to fight off the Tatar gangs that roamed the Wild Field many times. And yet, in 1380, the monastery and the church were taken and destroyed by Mamai. Tyapka himself, already a deep old man, if you believe the legend, endured terrible tortures, but never discovered where his wealth was hidden.
To this it remains only to add that some time after the Tatar invasion, the Grand Duke of Smolensk Yuri Svyatoslavich appeared in the monastery, located on the remote outskirts of Ryazan, who, in a fit of anger, killed his wife Juliania Vyazemskaya. He rebuilt the church and cells for the monks anew and made a generous contribution to the treasury of the monastery. As the chronicle tells, "not tolerating his bitter timelessness, shame and dishonor" after the death of his wife, the prince took the monastic rank and ended his days there, "weeping for his sin."
True, there is another version of the history of the Tyapkin hoard. According to her, at the beginning of the XIV century, the Moscow prince Ivan Kalita sent a tribute to the Khan Uzbek with the boyar Tyapkin to the Horde. But the ambassador appropriated the gifts to the khan and fled with them to the Romantsevo forests. There he gathered a gang of free people, founded a guard town on the banks of the Don and became a threat to the Tatars, killing the Khan Baskaks and freeing Russian captives. During one of his sorties, he freed a Russian priest, who first settled in his town, and then moved into the forest, where about 1353 he built the Church of St. Elijah on two floors: the lower one for housing, the upper one for worship.
Later Tyapkin and his comrades also moved there and, taking monasticism, founded a small monastery. In 1380 it was plundered by the Tatars who fled from the Kulikovo field. A little later, the hermit Peter, who was mentioned above, who won him great fame, began to live in the monastery. The pilgrims brought rich gifts there, which the monks hid in secret places. However, in 1542 the monastery was ruined by the Tatars. They could not find the monastic treasures.
Centuries later, peasants in the surrounding villages said that there is a cave on the mountainside above the Beautiful Sword River, where Tyapka - it is not known only, the first or the second - buried the barrels of gold. But no one can find them until the hour comes. And the following fact was cited as confirmation. There were many Tyapka treasure hunters who climbed into that cave, but they were not given to anyone. And supposedly, in order to scare them off, the rains suddenly began to pour sand into the cave. Its bottom began to rise higher and higher towards the stone ceiling, until there was only a narrow gap, along which you could crawl with great difficulty. If some daredevil penetrates into the depths of the underground labyrinth, he is seized by an irresistible horror. It seems to a person that he is in the grave and the boulders will now crush him. In a panic, the treasure hunter thinks only abouthow to get out of the enchanted cave.
So the robber's "baggage" lies waiting in the wings.
Nepomnyashchy N. N.