Kozma Porfirevich Dukhnin, one of the richest landowners of the Pskov province, was friends with Pyotr Andreevich Kleinmichel, a count and general, who in 1842-1855 was the chief manager of the routes of communications and public buildings of the Russian Empire. The business and human reputation of Kleinmichel was impeccable, which is why the merchants, without any IOUs, gave him any values required for building bridges and punching tunnels on the new Moscow-Petersburg railway line under construction.
But trouble struck. From the safe safe that stood in the office of the count, gold castings taken at interest - ingots - disappeared. Pyotr Andreevich, having carried out internal search measures in the department, achieved nothing. And then Dukhnin just arrived in time from his province. Noticing the depressed state of his friend, he forced him to frankness. Kozma Porfirevich and says:
- I have debts. Any money will give …
Kleinmichel murmured:
- How so? After all, even if they lend me the required amount, I won't be able to give it back - it's too big …
Dukhnin only grinned in response:
- My benefactors are such that they will give you a little gold, and the thieves who have robbed you will be brought to their knees before you.
On the way to the Pskov estate, Dukhnin entertained him as best he could, driving away black thoughts. When I saw that this did not help, I laid out my secret:
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“You know, my friend, that being poor in my youth, I had become rich by the age of forty. And all because one day the governor sent negotiators to me to obtain my consent to build a stone bridge across the river in my possession. Well, they built a bridge. Day after day, weights were dragged over it. Will it withstand? He was good! And at night that bridge collapsed. The inspectors rushed in. It turned out that the engineers got it wrong in the calculations. I was told that they would re-conclude a contract with me. To celebrate, I dined with the police officer and vodka, fell asleep.
I just closed my eyes and heard a mouse squeak and rustles. I lit a candle. My bedroom was filled with tiny people, with doll-like faces. These little people bow to me and tearfully ask me not to agree to the construction of the bridge. And they also ask me to wander a couple of miles from this place with my house. I thought that something had happened in my soul. In the morning on the bedside table I found a mountain of banknotes. With this money, I built a house, and brought the estate into a divine form …
Kleinmichel waved him off in annoyance.
- You tell fairy tales so that I take your money from you …
Dukhnin grinned again:
- This night the gold ingots will be returned by those who coveted them …
At night, no one knows how Kleinmichel's treasurers S. N. Broddi and V. V. Stavrygin appeared before the general and the landowner. With a crash they lowered the leather bag intended for the transportation of valuables to the floor and jumped out of the room like scalded ones. The general opened the bag with trembling hands. It contained the very stolen gold ingots.
At dawn, drowned men were found at the dam. They were Broddy and Stavrygin. The general did not find a place: therefore, this underground tribe of tiny people was not at all an invention ?! That same night, the dwarves themselves woke him up to say:
- We returned the thieves to the water not because of their greed, but because they wanted to turn us, masters, into slaves …
In St. Petersburg, the desks and safes of embezzlers were thoroughly searched. A strange letter to the name of Kleinmichel was discovered: "This petty bastard, which develops deposits of precious metals and copper ores, in a short time, but only under the duress, will be able to deliver fabulous wealth and dig underground halls of any size." Having familiarized themselves with this outlandish paper, the police decided that Broddy and Stavrygin had been damaged by their minds, which is why they took their own lives. Kleinmichel, under the pretext of unwillingness to head the department where such tragic absurdities happened, resigned and bought an estate next to Dukhnin's possessions.
What was the goal he pursued? In one of the works of the remarkable Russian ethnographer Mikhail Zabylin, published in 1880, the answer is given: “Dukhnin and Kleinmichel from specially prepared cold liquid gold, brought up by the leaders of the dwarf tribe living in the Russian north-west, received the elixir of Methuselah, which allows them to live almost forever, but not people, but gnomes - evil and selfish creatures."
Arthur Conan-Doyle, who did not doubt the existence of underground dwarfs, wrote: “On the churchyard of the St. Petersburg Alexander Nevsky Lavra there is the grave of Minister Kleinmichel, who was favored by the dwarfs. If you visit her at noon on January 4 of a leap year, you can see prints of tiny bare feet in the fresh, wet snow. The mansion of this official is still frightening and will frighten, while it is standing, with ghosts and sounds reminiscent of rifle shots. This is the price of a word given by man to the dwarves of the most ancient pagan tribe of the Earth in a desperate situation.
Alexander Volodev. "UFO", St. Petersburg, n50 (367), 06.12.2004, p. 11