By the beginning of the 20th century, Russia's gold reserves were one of the largest in the world. In 1918, the supreme ruler of Russia, Alexander Kolchak, became the custodian of 490 tons of gold bars.
Ural gold rush
In the 18th century in Russia, gold was mined mainly in the traditional way - in specialized mines. However, more and more reports began to reach reports about the finding of loose gold, which can be recorded in the documents of that era: “On May 1745, 21 days in the local Chancellery of the Main Plants of the Board, the aforementioned schismatic Markov … saw between the Stanovskaya and Pyshminskaya villages of the roads above, light stones like crystal … They found a plate, like a crème, on which the mark on one side in the nostril is like gold."
People constantly found nuggets or golden sand in the Urals. Meanwhile, the "hillockers" were still ravaging ancient burial mounds in the old fashioned way in search of gold. Soon there was no need for this - at the beginning of the 19th century, a real gold rush began in Russia, and it got to the point that even gold-bearing mines stopped their work - why are they needed when gold is literally underfoot?
By the middle of the 19th century, half of all world gold was mined in the country - the scale increased many times over. The gold reserve of the Russian Empire also grew - by the First World War it amounted to 1311 tons of gold or 1 billion 695 million rubles, and was one of the largest in the world.
Melting gold reserves
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The war greatly reduced Russia's gold reserves. 75 million rubles were sent to England to guarantee the payment of war loans. Another 562 million were transported to Canada, then part of the British Empire. Thus, by the time the Bolsheviks seized power and banks, the country's gold reserves amounted to 1 billion 100 million rubles.
However, the Bolsheviks did not get all the money - some of them were prudently evacuated from Petrograd to Kazan and other cities in the rear in 1915. Thus, only in Kazan, half of the entire gold reserve was concentrated.
The Bolsheviks tried to take it out, but they managed to take only 100 boxes - in August 1918 Kazan was captured by the Whites and their Czechoslovak allies. Since a month later, in November 1918, Admiral Kolchak was proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia, the gold remaining in Kazan was called "Kolchak's gold". The Whites took possession of 650 million rubles, which amounted to approximately 490 tons of pure gold in bars and coins: "The trophies cannot be counted, the Russian gold reserve of 650 million was seized."
The captured gold was partially transported by steamer to Samara, the capital of the anti-Bolshevik Committee of the Constituent Assembly members. From Samara, the gold moved to Ufa, and then to Omsk, where it entered the direct order of the Kolchak government.
In 1919, the gold was loaded into wagons and shipped along the Trans-Siberian railway, which at that time was controlled by Czech corps, who had lost confidence in the admiral. When the train with gold arrived at the Nizhneudinsk station, the representatives of the Entente forced Admiral Kolchas to renounce the rights of the Supreme Ruler and give the gold reserve to the Czechoslovak formations. Kolchak was handed over to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and they gave him to the Bolshevik authorities, who immediately shot the admiral. The Czech corps returned 409 million rubles to the Soviets in exchange for communication to release them from the country.
But what happened to the remaining 236 million?
Where is the gold?
According to one version, the same unfortunate Czechoslovak corps was the thief of the missing millions. When the Czechs were guarding the train with gold going from Omsk to Irkutsk, they took advantage of their position and stole the money.
This is usually confirmed by the fact that the largest Legiabank, a bank founded by Czech legionnaires, appeared immediately after the corps returned to its homeland. However, there is no evidence of this, moreover, the missing gold could not be enough to found this institution.
Former deputy. Minister of Finance in the government of Kolchak Novitsky accused the Czechs of stealing 63 million rubles, and some German oppositionists assured that the Czechs stole 36 million - all these figures have no source in real historical documents.
Another argument against the Czechs was the fact that Czechoslovakia helped Russian emigrants after the Civil War - colossal sums were allocated for support, which, according to the conspiracy theorists, were previously stolen from Kolchak's gold. However, according to the most conservative estimates, the amount of subsidies even exceeded the notorious 63 million.
According to another version, Kolchak's gold was hidden by order of the admiral himself. Among the possible places of the treasure, the Maryina Griva lock in the Ob-Yenisei canal is called, since the burial of five hundred White Guards was found next to it.
Another place of the alleged location of Kolchak's gold is the Sikhote-Alin mountains, in the caves of which gold ingots were allegedly found. There are reports that some of the gold was dumped in the Irtysh, while others believe that the Czech hulls pushed some of the wagons with gold into Baikal so that they would not get to the red ones. In 2013, archaeologist Aleksey Tivanenko announced that he had managed to find Kolchak's gold, having descended on a bathyscaphe to the bottom of Lake Baikal: “We found 4 ingots between the rubble. All this lies between the stones, between the sleepers."
One way or another, according to rumors and legends, the white admiral's gold has been incessantly sought after since the 1920s, both by private detachments and by Stalin's search teams. And the search continues to this day.
The most plausible version of the missing gold was put forward by the Russian historian Oleg Budnitsky. The notorious 236 million rubles, according to his hypothesis, settled in foreign banks as payment for weapons and ammunition.
The scientist processed many archives located in Stanford, New York and Leeds, and calculated that the Kolchak government sent abroad, to British, French and American banks, about 195 million gold rubles. In exchange for gold, loans were provided to whites, and gold was deposited to buy weapons from the Americans on credit.
The financiers of the White movement also actively bought dollars to stabilize the financial situation. The remaining money, 43 million rubles, was seized by Ataman Semyonov on a train heading from Omsk to Vladivostok, and the gold was spent on maintaining the troops, including trying to win over the Mongols. Thus, all the allegedly missing Kolchak capital went to cover military expenses and loans from foreign banks.