By the beginning of World War I, the Russian Empire had the largest gold reserve in the world, a significant part of which disappeared after the revolution
What's missing?
According to various sources, the treasury of Admiral Alexander Kolchak contained from 500 to 650 tons of gold. In addition, among the treasures inherited by the commander, 30,000 pounds or 480 tons of silver, church utensils and other historical values are named. The approximate cost of gold alone in 2000s prices is about $ 60 billion.
Colossal treasures were captured by the White Guards under the command of Colonel Vladimir Kappel in Kazan, where before, far from the revolutionary capitals, the Bolsheviks had managed to transport valuables. The gold was sent by train to Omsk, where by November 1918 the new government of Russia had gathered. Admiral Kolchak was declared the "supreme ruler" of the country.
The valuables were placed in the Omsk State Bank, and they were revised only after 6 months. By this time, 505 tons remained in the "gold reserve". It is likely that some of the funds have already been spent.
How did it go?
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According to archival documents, a total of eight echelons with gold left Omsk for the Far East, the first set off in March 1919. Seven of them reached Vladivostok. The most mysterious is the fate of the last, eighth train, millions of gold rubles and dozens of boxes with ingots from it disappeared without a trace.
One of the armored trains of Kolchak's army, captured by the Red Army, 1920. wikimedia
When the retreat of Kolchak's troops from Omsk began, the gold was loaded into 40 wagons and sent east along the Transsib. He was accompanied by 12 escort cars. In the area of the Nizhneudinsk station, the train was stopped by the White Czechs who controlled those territories. They, with the consent of the Entente countries, forced the supreme ruler of Russia to renounce his post and transfer the existing values to the Czechoslovak corps. The Czechs, in exchange for security guarantees, gave 311 tons of gold and the admiral to the SRs. And those, in turn, to the Bolsheviks. Kolchak was shot, and the "gold reserve" was returned to the state, missing more than 180 tons.
Where to looking for?
According to one version, Kolchak ordered to hide some of the valuables before his arrest. Potential places for finding the treasure were the Maryina Griva lock in the Ob-Yenisei canal (this navigable water canal between the Ob and Yenisei basins was used from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century) and caves in the Sikhote-Alin mountains in the Khabarovsk Territory.
Map of the Ob-Yenisei Canal.
Some seekers believe that some of the gold could have been dumped in the Irtysh or Baikal. There are legends that in 1919 the locals saw a train with 26 boxes of gold at the Taiga station on the 3565th kilometer of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
A more plausible version seems to be that the supreme ruler used up a significant part of the gold of the Russian Empire for a short time in office, and the other part was sent abroad. That is, practically nothing remained of the gold reserve. There is information that Kolchak spent about 250 million gold rubles on the purchase of weapons and obtaining loans from foreign banks. In addition, the Kolchak government ordered the printing of its own banknotes in the United States, which it paid for, but never received.
Members of the Russian naval mission to the United States, led by Alexander Kolchak (seated in the center) with American naval officers in New York.
Gold was exported through Vladivostok to Sweden, Norway, Japan, Britain and the USA. There he was placed in banks as collateral for obtaining loans. Some of the ingots were transferred to the United States government for the supply of Remington rifles and Colt machine guns.
It is believed that the money remaining in foreign banks was spent on the resettlement of Wrangel's army in the Balkans and helping emigrants until the 1950s.
It is known that part of the valuables from one of the echelons was captured by the troops of the ataman Grigory Semyonov. He used about 30 tons of gold for the needs of his army. Perhaps some of the values, retreating, were taken by the White Czechs. After the return of the Czechoslovak corps home, the legionnaires formed the largest Legiabank.
The surviving Kolchak's gold was returned to Kazan. These funds were used to restore the country's economy and industry after the Civil War, including the construction of the first "construction sites for communism." Only the last "gold" echelon, returned from Irkutsk, "lost weight" by more than four million gold rubles, or, in equivalent, by almost three and a half tons of precious metal. Its fate still worries treasure hunters.