Part I

secret convention

The gold reserves of tsarist Russia did not sink into oblivion, did not burn out in the flames of the civil war, and were not even “eaten away” by the Bolsheviks. In any case, not all. He lay quietly in foreign banks, bringing income to everyone except Russia. Long time Russian gold abroad was considered just a legend, beautiful and mysterious, invented by white émigrés, debunked later by the Bolsheviks and again picked up and cherished by Gorbachev's propaganda. It turned out that the "legend" has such documentary support, from ordinary receipts to full-fledged articles of international treaties, which can be envied by another most real and modern project.

However, for 80 years at the governmental level there has been a complete or almost complete inattention to this problem. Therefore, the return of Russia's gold "from distant wanderings", as well as negotiations around innumerable treasures, are fraught with unprecedented difficulties. Tsarist Russia hardly parted with its gold reserves, sending it to Europe and Asia. A hundred times more difficult will be the return path of gold. This is evidenced, for example, by the round of Russian-French consultations on the "gold" issue.

French assets, however, are not the biggest piece of the Russian gold pie. At least five more are missing - English, Japanese, Czech, Slovak and Swedish. Of these, the first two are the largest and most appetizing.

Liverpool convoy

The history of English gold goes back to the First World War, in particular, to October 1914. It was this month that a mysterious cargo set off from Arkhangelsk to England on a British military transport, accompanied by the cruiser Drake. This was the first batch of Russian pledged gold worth 10 million pounds.

At the heart of this parcel or, as they wrote then, the bill of lading was a secret Russian-English convention, concluded with the participation of France and providing for the purchase of weapons in the UK. Oddly enough, with all the references to the rich and successful year for Russia in 1913, by the beginning of the war the country, in fact, was not ready, and, above all, in the field of armaments. The private sector, which embraced many of the largest weapons and ammunition manufacturing plants, failed to cope with the state order, and Russia found itself in a situation aptly defined by the saying: go hunting - feed the dogs.

So, the first convoy was supposed to set off on a course for Liverpool in compliance with all precautions and secrecy, which absolutely did not prevent German intelligence from scrupulously tracing its entire route. Off the coast of Great Britain, the Drake cruiser ran into mines generously placed by German submarines and received a hole, serious, but not fatal. A miracle or providence allowed the transport, which had an invaluable cargo in the holds, to reach the port alone. The first bill of lading has arrived at its destination.

The adventures that fell to the lot of the Liverpool convoy were recognized both in Russia and in England as undesirable, and the whole journey was extremely dangerous and risky. Therefore, it was decided to send the next batches of gold in a roundabout way. From St. Petersburg, the gold went by train to Vladivostok, then loaded onto Japanese military transports and sailed to the USA or Canada. There it was again reloaded onto a train and crossed the American continent from west to east, where it was loaded onto ships for the second time and headed across the Atlantic to England.

After Liverpool, 4 more shipments of gold were sent: one in 1915, two in 1916 and the last in January 1917, literally on the eve of the February Revolution. All five gold bills of lading were worth about £80 million at the time.

The travel time of one parcel, if it went around the world, stretched out for almost a year. Therefore, the entire order for British weapons, ammunition and ammunition was neither paid for nor completed before the October coup. For the money that reached England on time, Russia asked, demanded (even the Grand Dukes personally visited England by decision of the then "politburo" - the Romanov family), begged to send weapons urgently, immediately, in an emergency order.

The English worker, unlike the Russian, is not accustomed to rushing and is not scientific. You can’t force him to simply turn 101 cartridges instead of the prescribed 100. Therefore, the order was carried out within a timeframe convenient for the British military-industrial complex. The first part of it went to Russia through Sweden, where it settled in warehouses for an indefinite period. Throughout the civil war, the Bolsheviks tried to take away from the Swedes this batch of military equipment, which consisted of rifles, cartridges, the notorious "Budyonovka" and leather jackets. Partially it succeeded. So it was in English leather, intended for tankmen, that Soviet commissars flaunted in civilian clothes, and the headdresses of the Red Army with an English stigma, but with a completely revolutionary name, entered Russian history for a long time.

Two Russias for one gold

The situation with English gold turned out to be very similar to the future Japanese version of the problem: gold was sent under a military order, the order was not completed or executed for a ridiculously small amount, and the money was not returned under various pretexts.

In Great Britain, all Russian gold for military orders was accepted by the so-called Bank of England. Before the establishment diplomatic relations between Russia and England in 1924, the ambassador of the Provisional Government, Nabokov, disposed of these holdings. A practice common at the time. For example, after the revolution, Ambassador Maklakov disposed of Russia's property in France, and in the United States until 1933 - also the ambassador of the Provisional Government Bakhmetyev, under whose leadership the Union of Russian Ambassadors was created abroad, which supported emigration to a certain extent and was a kind of embodiment of the concept of two Russias - red and white. Emigration assistance was, however, insignificant.

It is only known for certain that on the “grant” from Russian gold abroad, Denikin wrote his famous “Essays on Russian Troubles”.

We must pay tribute to the Bolsheviks: at the negotiations in Genoa in 1922, they raised the issue of Russian gold, which migrated to England, Japan and France. To the demand to return someone else's property, the West put forward counterclaims: to return or compensate for the property nationalized as a result of the 1917 revolution. In response to these claims, the Bolsheviks demanded compensation for the damage done to Russia by the intervention, putting up a crazy bill of 50 billion US dollars. As a result, they did not agree, except for the payment of part of the royal debts on securities, and then - only to state ones and only until 1914 ...

Nikolaev bill of lading

The 5 gold parcels mentioned above do not exhaust the total amount of gold that left Russia for Great Britain on the eve of the revolution. One of the convoys also contained the personal bill of lading of Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna. It contained 5.5 tons of gold.

By tradition, the royal family had personal gold mines. In tsarist Russia there were no private gold mines - there was a state monopoly, as well as for vodka. The only exception was made for the Romanov family. The sovereign had mines in Altai, and even when he transferred the entire Altai in 1909 under reforms to Stolypin for the resettlement of the then "farmers" there, he still retained the mines.

The situation of 1916-1917 was extremely difficult for the royal family, which is why the abdication of Nicholas from the throne on March 2, 1917 should not be considered spontaneous. It was not the revolution that overthrew the tsar. The whole family, the entire hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, all the commanders of the fronts and the majority of dignitaries opposed him. In fact, he was offered the path of the English queen: to reign, but not to rule. The most important accusation was that in 1916 Nicholas II began separate peace negotiations with Germany. Rubinshtein and Simonov, well-known then in the financial circles of Russia, went to Sweden and began to pave the way for the signing of a peace treaty. By the way, Rasputin also supported this world, which is why he was killed, that is, not for fornication, but because he got into big politics.

The entire peace process was prepared in 1916, and later Lenin only had to sign the Brest peace treaty. It was about this political campaign of Nicholas II that Milyukov said in the Duma: this is cowardice or treason!

Empress Alexandra understood the situation much better than her husband. In the memoirs of Vyrubova, a lady who at that time was close to royal family, one conversation is mentioned in which she talks about the need to have some kind of reserve of money abroad just in case. To this end, it was decided to send gold to England, which settled not in Bank of England, but in a small bank of the Bering brothers. It was sent with the latest shipment in January 1917 and took almost 12 months to reach England.

This is approximately how the situation with English gold of Russian origin looks today. As for the purely imperial 5.5 tons, then, according to some sources, Shevardnadze and Gorbachev abandoned it in favor of England. Or rather, they didn’t refuse, but paid them off for royal shares, thus giving birth to the beloved by everyone in Soviet time another "zero option" in politics.

However, there are still no applicants for the Nikolaevsky bill of lading. Among them are the heirs to the royal throne, growing like mushrooms after the rain. The same gold was claimed by another false Anastasia, who allegedly turned out to be the living daughter of Nicholas II. She was well prepared for the trial. The only thing the lady made a mistake when speaking before English justice was the name of the bank, which to this day keeps discreet yellow-red bars in standard boxes of 60 kilograms each with the stamp of the state treasury of the Russian Empire in its cellars.

Part II

Japan and I are friends

Japanese gold, Kolchak, Semenov, "white", Omsk - all this has been said for many years Soviet power about the same tsarist, or rather valuable property belonging to tsarist Russia, which ended up in Japan and peacefully lain in the banks of the Land of the Rising Sun for more than 80 years. The term is colossal. Interest even from one gold royal chervonets, as well as interest from interest and so on during this time could seriously improve the financial situation of any needy citizen. And if there are millions of these chervonets, then it is already possible to feed a country with a multimillion population with bread and butter.

"Podtyaginsky" contract

The reason why a piece of Russia's gold reserves, which was solid for those times, got into Japan is simple and understandable. 1916, the First World War is in full swing, the success of the parties is variable. In the unknown Belgian town of Ypres, the Germans are preparing for the first time in the history of wars to use a chemical warfare agent in the form of a gas that will be called mustard gas - the effect is stunning. The talented Russian general Brusilov has already gone down in history with his famous breakthrough. And Japan remains neutral and is ready to help any of the parties, for example, with weapons. Russia's search for arms markets intersected with the Japanese offer, and the mighty eastern power turned to its even more eastern neighbor.

An order was made officially for a large batch of machine guns, artillery pieces and ammunition. The order was quite within the power of Japanese industry, which took shape in the corresponding agreement of September 4, 1916.

As payment, Russia sent to Japan not gold in bullion and jewelry, but securities - bills and bonds, the so-called "paper" gold. A special clause of the agreement stated: in case of default by the Japanese side, it returns back the securities or their equivalent in gold Japanese yen, dollars or other currency.

Thanks to the great work carried out by the International Expert Council on Russian Gold and Real Estate Abroad, headed by Professor Vladlen Sirotkin, it was possible to establish with documentary accuracy the total amount of the agreement: 70 million gold Japanese yen.

The situation further is like two drops of water similar to the English one. Orders were made for 300 thousand, delivered to warehouses, but not sent. Bottom line: Japan received the money, formally fulfilled the order for a completely meager percentage of the total amount of the agreement, but “forgot” to return the rest for various reasons. This gold is often called "Podtyaginsky" after the name of the tsarist military attaché in Japan at that time, General Podtyagin.

Kolchak's millions

For a long time there were legends that the entire gold reserve of Russia went to Admiral Kolchak, that he hid it, re-hidden it in the vast expanses of Siberia, that it was either found or lost again. Basically a detective. But there is some truth in this, although much less than fiction.

It is believed that the admiral captured about half of Russia's remaining gold reserves by 1918. Not personally, although Kolchak was brave and cold-blooded in battle. This was done on August 6, 1918 in Kazan by the detachments of Colonel Kappel, known in Soviet history mainly from the film "Chapaev" and the chilling "psychic" attack of Kappel's officers, thwarted by Anka the machine-gunner and the swift throw of Chapaev's cavalry.

Kappel, who later received general's shoulder straps (not for gold, by the way, but for skillful leadership of the troops), handed over his trophy to the People's Army of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, which was then being formed in Samara. But the Red Army was advancing, so the gold first migrated from Kazan to Samara, then through Ufa to Chelyabinsk and Omsk. There, in November of the same year, it went to Kolchak. The total volume is about 500 tons.

With the second half of the tsarist treasury, which remained in Nizhny Novgorod and went to the Leninist government, the Bolsheviks successfully lived through the entire civil war up to the NEP, and also managed to feed the allies a little, in particular, Germany.

Oddly enough, but, disposing of the gold he got, Kolchak chose a path similar to the Bolshevik one, that is, he decided to send part of the gold abroad to bribe the allies. Lenin relied on Germany, and Kolchak on Japan. Everyone wanted to send "their own" 4 trains. Lenin managed to send 2 echelons (about 93.5 tons) to Germany, which went to the French. Kolchak managed to send all 4 echelons, 3 of which reached Vladivostok, and the 4th was captured by Ataman Semenov.

In Vladivostok, representatives of Kolchak sold out all 3 echelons on the non-ferrous metal exchange at bargain prices. But it was not all the gold of the Omsk ruler. The second part was sent directly to Japan as a gold deposit in the Yokohama Bank, which at that time was the only one engaged in foreign exchange transactions in Japan.

It is believed that about 200 tons of Kolchak's gold came to Japan, plus what Ataman Semyonov captured, that is, about 60 more tons. Thus, the asset can be valued at 260 tons.

Lovely or otherwise

Gold is a despicable metal, but at the same time very respected. Therefore, claims for gold can always be made. According to the representatives of the International Expert Council, they will certainly be put forward for Japanese gold. There are all documents, all tables of calculations, all accounts of the respective banks are taken into account. It was these banks that removed interest from Kolchak's gold every 10 years in the amount of approximately 62 million gold yen, which were directly sent to the treasury of the Land of the Rising Sun.

The Japanese themselves for a long time pretended that they knew nothing about gold. Which Kolchak? What civil war? We hear for the first time! But it turns out that from 1924 to 1941, former white generals, who happily escaped Bolshevik repressions abroad, sued the Japanese government, which officially stated during the process: there is gold, but we don’t know who to give it to - there is no owner. General Petrov, head of the logistics of Ataman Semenov's army, won the process, but did not receive gold, since he did not have a power of attorney from the Russian government. And it is unlikely that Stalin would have given him such a power of attorney.

Today, the International expert advice. But it is not the court and not even the demand to return the royal gold that is his main task. We, Chairman of the Board Vladlen Sirotkin said, first want to prove to the Japanese, and if necessary, through the courts, that Russian gold is still in the vaults of Tokyo Mitsubishi Bank, one of the ten largest banks in the world, the successor to Yokohama Bank. As for the demand for gold back, the so-called "Indonesian" path is possible. During World War II, Japan seized Indonesia's gold reserves and even took it out of the country. Immediately after the war, the Indonesians offered the Japanese negotiations on two options: amicably or differently. In a different way - it means with a scandal, noise in the press, courts and other things. In the end, everyone agreed amicably.

The Russian side is also putting forward a proposal to consider the problem "amicably". For example, gold is not exported, but, for example, a joint venture or several are created on the interest from it, which can issue securities, implement all kinds of contracts, and make investments.

The "other" way, according to the members of the expert council, is the publication of archives in the press and the court, where all the "I" will be dotted. In both cases, Russia has a lot of chances. There were more than one precedent. In addition to Indonesian gold, stories are known about the gold reserves of Estonia, Lithuania, and Albania. All of them had a difficult fate, but the yellow bars returned to their homeland.

Part III

To Paris on business

At the end of November 1996, Mr. Chernomyrdin, who is also a former prime minister, who is also a PMC and, as is known today, a heavyweight, was going to Paris. Exactly three days, actually. They were waiting for him there. Viktor Stepanovich preceded his visit with another brilliant aphorism: "Debts must be paid!" At the end of the visit, a document appeared with a long title: "Memorandum of Understanding between the governments of the Russian Federation and the French Republic regarding the final settlement of mutual claims between Russia and France that arose before May 9, 1945." These demands are nothing but the tsarist debts of Russia. Viktor Chernomyrdin, with Suvorov's swiftness, solved the problem with an 80-year trail of disputes and discussions in three days. Apparently he wanted the best.

With all due respect to the international document, the phrase "final settlement" can easily be questioned. For different reasons. It's hard to see everything. Let's try to analyze this: the fundamentally different approach of Russia and France to the concept of "royal debts".

With French maximalism

At the very beginning of 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR officially decreed the refusal to pay the debts of the "damned tsarist regime." Many people didn't like it. Including the French. And in 1919 they made claims, and to the maximum. First, return the value of 10 million Russian government bonds and shares of private Russian companies, banks and 147 cities Russian Empire sold from 1880 to 1914 in France on the Paris Stock Exchange at an average price of about 500 gold francs (about 100 US dollars in today's terms) apiece. Secondly, to return or compensate real estate in Moscow and Petrograd, oil developments in Baku and Grozny, coal and iron ore mines in Krivoy Rog and Donbass, as well as investments (Trans-Siberian Railway, tram in Moscow, Kyiv, Odessa, etc.).

The amount of total compensation required has been continuously increasing throughout the 80 years. The descendants of the holders of Russian securities and the descendants of the owners of real estate in Russia call a simply fantastic figure of $50 billion plus another $120 billion in interest.

Note that the claims of the “public” are significantly, several orders of magnitude higher than the claims of the French government, which practically removed the requirements for real estate and investments, leaving only securities, and not all of them, but only government bonds. Therefore, the consent of Alain Juppe, who signed the Memorandum, to be content with only 400 million dollars, and even in installments for four years, caused a whole wave of indignation among the leaders of public associations of the descendants of holders of securities and real estate. Monsieur Juppe was even threatened with a lawsuit. Indeed, 400 million is difficult to compare with 170 billion.

Chicherin's defense

The Russian side, by a circular note from People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin, renounced its irreconcilable position not to pay the royal debts at all, but agreed to discuss this problem, confining itself to the historical framework of 1880-1914. This approach was adopted in principle by the Entente.

However, the "red" diplomats did not fail at the negotiations in Genoa, The Hague and Paris in 1922-1927 to subtract from the sum of Russia's state debts 25 percent, which fell on the seceded Poland, Finland, the Baltic countries and Bessarabia. This was also accepted by France and its Entente allies.

Either the diplomats were more generous then, or the dollar exchange rate was higher and more stable, it was easier and faster to keep back in the 20s than in the 90s. The fact that Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan and other republics of the former “great and indivisible” left the USSR is almost not taken into account today. But in vain, since up to 60 percent of French securities and investments until 1914 accounted for precisely the southern regions of the Russian Empire.

Claims for French real estate and investments were neutralized to a certain extent in the 1920s by Russia's counterclaim for 340 ships hijacked by Baron Wrangel in November 1920 from the Crimea. Negotiations on the return of ships were conducted during the 20s. But they did not bring results. As a result, about 70 percent of Russian ships were simply sold by the French for scrap, and the most combat-ready ships were enrolled in the Mediterranean Naval Squadron.

Silence is gold

The memorandum was important, but not at all main goal the Parisian visit of the former Prime Minister of Russia to Paris. First, it was necessary to achieve the lifting of the embargo on the distribution of "Eurobonds" of the Russian Federation on French territory. The condition was the signing of the Memorandum. The second goal is to defer current payments. The numbers here and there are very significant. Who here will remember piquant moments like the “Lenin gold” sent by Vladimir Ilyich to the German Kaiser in the Brest Peace. In November 1918, after the surrender of Germany, it was captured by the French as a war trophy, a rich and enviable trophy - 93.5 tons in bullion. The gold was exported to France with a reservation in the form of Article 256 of the Versailles Treaty of 1919. This gold, it was said in the agreement, is in temporary storage in France. It remains there to this day. Because there is nothing more permanent than the temporary storage of someone else's gold. How many percent "ran up" since then on such a revered yellow metal and how the French used them - there was no talk at the negotiations between Chernomyrdin and Juppe. Victor Stepanovich remained silent for exactly 93.5 tons, because although he was in Paris on business, it was completely different.

Part IV

orange gesheft

1964 in the life of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev is one of the most memorable. Having celebrated his seventieth anniversary in a wide Russian way, he finally became a Hero of the Soviet Union, adding a fourth Gold Star to his immense order iconostasis.

The October plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU of the same year, mysterious and lightning-fast, excommunicated Khrushchev from power, placing Leonid Brezhnev at the helm of the Soviet state for the next 18 years. At the same time, another event took place on a much smaller scale, when compared with the epoch-making plenum, but more important for Russia in terms of the country's culture and history.

Load oranges by barges

This event began to be commented on much later, and then, in the mid-60s, hands simply did not reach, and few people knew about it. Its essence is as follows. Two deputy ministers of the Khrushchev government - foreign affairs and finance - signed an agreement with the Israeli authorities, which is unique in its essence and has no analogues in the history of diplomacy and trade. The Soviet side sold real estate to the Israeli side, which was located on the territory of Israel, but belonged to tsarist Russia.

The amount of the deal was not of serious importance for the economy of the USSR and was ridiculous at that time for interstate relations - 4.5 million dollars. The highlight of this "gesheft" was that Israel paid only a small part of the cost of the contract, and then not in gold, not in dollars or even shekels, but ... in oranges.

Old-timers remember that it was in that year that the lazy southern Russian ports almost choked on sunny, beautiful and insanely delicious fruits with an unfamiliar Mediterranean flavor. Oranges were eaten quickly, still far on the way to the harsh northern latitudes of the unmeasured Union ... Buildings, fortunately, not all, came under the jurisdiction of the Israeli authorities.

The second piquant moment of this transaction is one international legal subtlety. All the buildings sold and, of course, the land did not belong to the Soviet Union, but were the property of the Russian Empire, as they were built and bought with the money of the tsarist government, and often with personal donations from the Romanov family. And someone, but not Nikita Khrushchev, a master of international crises and a virtuoso selector from agriculture, had the right to dispose of this real estate.

The complex of buildings sold included a hospital, a school, several churches and farmsteads (hotels), as well as a number of other places of worship and household buildings. Only a part of the approximately 40 objects that were built in the Holy Land from the middle of the 19th century with the active support of the tsarist government, which subsidized the construction, was sold. In Jerusalem, and most of the established property of tsarist Russia was found in Jerusalem, there is the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the church in the name of St. Queen Alexandra and the House of the Spiritual Mission. The belonging of these objects to the imperial government is confirmed by the "List of Russian institutions in Palestine and Syria", dated 1903 and found in the archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry with the assistance of the historical and diplomatic department of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

In the same position of the List there are 3 farmsteads: Elizavetinskoe, Mariinskoe, Nikolaevskoe, 1 large hospital, 1 small hospital for infectious diseases, the building of the Consulate General. These objects were managed by the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society and had the same government affiliation. The 1903 list was first published in the Russian press only in 1992. It includes 37 items.

Private property in the West is honored

When it comes to Russian real estate abroad, Israel is mentioned most often because all these properties are located there compactly and more prominently. But there is, for example, the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the Pleasant in southern Italy, which is also a place of pilgrimage. The St. Panteleimon Monastery in Greece has been perfectly preserved to this day. At one time, up to 12 thousand monks lived there. He is absolutely priceless. And it's not just about land and buildings. The richest church utensils and a gigantic library that has been collected since the 12th century have miraculously survived to our times.

The main question: what to do with Russian real estate abroad - is now, oddly enough, in the background. The problem of restoring Russia's jurisdiction over this real estate comes to the fore. By refusing in 1918 to pay royal debts and return confiscated real estate, Soviet Russia automatically renounced everything it had abroad. This legacy was remembered, as mentioned above, only at the Genoa Peace Conference in 1922. But Lenin preferred to conclude a separate treaty with Germany at Rapallo, although Chicherin was already ready to sign the General Agreement, the same one that, almost 70 years later, Gorbachev would sign. In 1992, this agreement was confirmed in the Franco-Russian treaty by President Yeltsin.

By the way, the same French are well aware that the house near Paris of the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev was bequeathed by the great thinker Russian state. There, in the vicinity of the French capital, is the Tolstoy nursing home, which belonged to Princess Meshcherskaya. And in the center of Paris there is a five-story mansion, bought in the 70s by the Soviet government. Or another example. When the prime minister of the tsarist government, Sergei Witte, resigned, he received the highest order of the state - St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called. In addition to the order, a dacha in Nice was bought for him at the expense of the state treasury.

You can be sure that in the West they remember well what belongs to whom and are simply afraid of making claims. Because they respect private property!

Will hope!

Solving the problem of Russian jurisdiction over all this mass of real estate involves a very broad approach. In addition to pre-revolutionary property, which is divided into ecclesiastical and secular, there is also Soviet and Russian property. Alas, no body has been created in Russia to resolve the issue. A serious breakthrough in this area could be the adoption of a law, the draft of which, entitled "On the Property of the Russian Federation Located Abroad," should already have been discussed several times in the Duma. The discussion has been postponed for now.

A step forward, albeit not the most significant one, was taken by the government of Yevgeny Primakov by including a separate item in the anti-crisis program: “... to find out and prove Russia's ownership rights to the property of the USSR and the Russian Empire abroad.” Well, as they say, let's hope!

But if we nevertheless assume that this issue will be resolved in the near or not quite near future in favor of Russia, then the second question will become urgent, it is also the main one: what to do with all these buildings, buildings, land plots? One independent American real estate company decided, either for the sake of simple interest, or for future self-interest, to calculate how much it costs that in the West is inextricably linked with the house of the Romanovs, the Russian Orthodox Church in a word, with Russia. The computer gave out: at current prices, the land and buildings, the successor and owner of which - under certain circumstances - Russia can be considered, are estimated at 300 billion dollars. The amount is fantastic. The property is immensity. Sell ​​her? Rent to foreigners? Should Russian institutions be relocated there? Open new? There are a lot of options, alas, far from implementation. Russian real estate from abroad is moving towards Russia very slowly.

The book contains information about 17815.147 kg of gold. These tons disappeared from the vault of the Kazan branch of the People's Bank of Russia in August 1918. The value has not yet been found. In the Ministry of Internal Affairs there is an operational-search case "Golden Fleece"; some information on this topic is kept under the heading "top secret". At present, treasure hunters have also joined the search for royal gold. The author for the first time cites data from two declassified funds of the National Archives of Tatarstan. The historical context of the events that unfolded simultaneously with the evacuation of the gold reserves is reproduced on the basis of memoirs and works of historians.

17,815.147 KG GOLD (From the author)

This book contains information about 17,815.147 kg of gold that disappeared from the vault of the Kazan branch of the People's (State) Bank of Russia in August 1918. These tons amount to 572,770 troy ounces and are constantly rising in price. On January 1, 2011, they were valued on the London Stock Exchange at $ 813,619,785. At the time of reading these lines, you yourself can find a quote for a troy ounce of gold on the Internet and simply multiply by the number of ounces. You will see how the cost of this loss today is inexorably approaching one billion US dollars.

Perhaps you know treasures of this magnitude, but the author has not found any mention of treasures of such value in the entire history of the world. For comparison: the world-famous burial of Tutankhamun kept the golden tomb of the pharaoh weighing 110.4 kg. Naturally, the artifacts of the pharaoh of the XVIII dynasty of the rulers of Ancient Egypt are much more valuable in the cultural and historical sense. But in the applied sense, the value of gold treasures near Kazan has nothing to compare with ...

How real these mysterious tons of yellow metal are, the author leaves the reader to judge by the declassified documents of the State Bank of the USSR. In fact, it is not so easy to clarify the issue. In the bowels of the Ministry of Internal Affairs there is an operational-search case "Golden Fleece", which stores most of the information on this topic under the heading "top secret".

In the summer of 1918, in the "gold pantry" of the Kazan branch of the People's Bank, 444 tons of 509 kilograms 799 grams and 65 milligrams of gold in the amount of 574,127,751.46 royal gold rubles gleamed with yellow sides of coins and ingots. At that time, the National Bank of Russia was called the National Bank. Four steel safes and a chest of the "gold pantry" of the Kazan branch, as well as seven shelving of the vault were designed to store gold, two shelving - for silver. The entrance to the pantry was securely locked with steel lattice doors from Artur Koppel JSC, welded according to the system of the Berlin company Ponzer.

A spiral staircase led up from the second underground floor, where the "golden pantry" was located. In the upper vault - the "money pantry", as well as in the premises of the change office, there were seven more safes and chests, in the office of the loan office - one more. The "upper" vault contained precious jewelry, bundles of paper banknotes, securities, bags with copper coins. And also that part of the gold that was brought in the summer of 1918 and which simply no longer fit in a specialized pantry.

In total, by August 1918, over 73 percent of Russia's gold reserves were concentrated in Kazan under the control of the Bolsheviks. The strategic reserve was restlessly burning through the pockets of the representatives of the new government and beckoning their opponents to it. At that time, the Bolsheviks were negotiating in Berlin on the conditions for the export of part of Russia's gold to Germany as an indemnity under the terms Brest-Litovsky peace on March 3, 1918.

The enemies of Germany - the Russian officers who fought with her - could not forgive the Leninists for capitulating to the Kaiser's troops. But besides emotions, the opponents of the Bolsheviks had other reasons for discontent.

On January 22, 1918, Lenin by his decree announced the financial insolvency of Russia - default. At that time, it turned out that by the beginning of World War I, Russia's gold reserves were the largest in the world and amounted to 1.695 billion royal gold rubles. AT metric system this figure corresponds to 1312328325 grams of the precious metal, in troy ounces - 42192335.39190706. Multiply this figure by the current exchange rate of the troy ounce, as there is information on the Internet. On January 1, 2011, the royal gold reserves of 1914 would be estimated at $59,934,212,424.2.

But by the time the banks were seized by the Bolsheviks, the gold reserves had decreased by more than 1.5 times. While the total public debt of Russia exceeded the entire remaining gold reserves of the country. Referring to bankruptcy and revolution, the Bolsheviks for the first time in world history completely refused to pay debts - to foreigners (although there was enough gold to pay for external obligations in excess) and subjects of Russia.

It turned out that, in fact, the Brest-Litovsk Treaty credits given by England, France and the USA for the war with Germany, Russia transferred the same Germany to continue the war with Russia's creditors, and the Bolsheviks themselves showed the Entente a revolutionary figure. Many people could not come to terms with this. Russian and foreign hands reached out to the Kazan storehouse of gold reserves. Both camps of the Civil and World War spoke about patriotism, the salvation of the Motherland, the honor of the borrower. But they were understood in the opposite way: to export gold to Berlin (Vienna) or London (Paris, Washington). And at the same time leave some within Russia ...

Ordinary residents turned out to be hostages of circumstances and reminded the patient of two dentists who took turns pulling the same golden tooth.

For a contemporary, that wound has not healed to this day. Because part of the gold in the turmoil of battles simply disappeared and sits like a restless thorn in the body of the country in an area known to the Russian special services for more than 80 years.

Even for the author of the book, her information remains an unsolved code. Because the documents authoritatively testify that the treasures are real. But why, then, have they not been found so far by highly qualified representatives of the banking community and special services? Apparently, the devil is in the details. You should read again and again all the vicissitudes of this golden drama, which the author, as an investigative journalist, cite with the greatest possible thoroughness and detail. And only after that to understand: what did the gold hunters not think of during all the past searches? What detail was overlooked? Where did the soles of their feet not turn? In answering these questions and actually looking for real traces of gold, the reader can outdo his predecessors. What the author sincerely wishes for him.

Two more circumstances of the appearance of the book are noteworthy. At 12:38 on November 25, 2009, her manuscript was sent by e-mail to the editors of Novaya Gazeta. With the proposal of the author of the investigation to select those fragments that she considers necessary for publication on her pages. On January 15, 2010 at 3:37 pm, the editor of the newspaper, Dmitry Muratov, wrote to the author in an email: “I have read it. I'm interested". Later, however, even this publication began to hesitate to publish fragments of the investigation.

The digest from the book was published in a small edition on the pages of the Vechernyaya Kazan newspaper in September - November 2010 in twelve articles. Articles lost sharply in circulation, but won in terms of criticism. They were silently “enlightened” and not challenged in court by the press service of the National Bank of the Republic of Tatarstan (the successor of the Kazan branch of the State Bank), Tatarstan employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service, as well as treasure hunters. All of them are interested in not making a fuss about these values ​​until the discovery of the treasure.

The only comment on the general historical context of events, which the author took into account, was made by local historians. And also during the publication of newspaper articles, the grateful son of one of the main figures in the history of 1918, bank secretary Viktor Kalinin, responded. His son's name is German Viktorovich, he enriched the contents of the book with new details and photographs of his father. He was also grateful that I told the readers about the parent.

The author was in no hurry to publish the entire contents of the book until, in the fall of 2010, frank distortions of information about the lost gold appeared in the federal media. This was done by treasure hunters. In order to lead the reader away from the place of searching for tons of gold.

For your information, Article 51 of the Mass Media Law, in particular, states: “It is not allowed to use the rights of a journalist established by this law for the purpose of concealing or falsifying publicly significant information, spreading rumors under the guise of reliable reports ...”

Did people who did not even read this article have a desire to comply with other legal norms and, according to the law, share with the state and society unrecorded millions in gold? Doubts about this issue forced the author to speed up the publication of the book.

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, gold was mined in Russia mainly in the traditional way - in specialized mines. However, more and more often reports began to reach about the discovery of alluvial gold, which can be recorded in the documents of that era: “On May 21, 1745, in the local Office of the Main Board Plants, the aforementioned schismatic Markov ... saw light pebbles like crystal at the top between the Stanovskoye and Pyshminskaya villages of the roads ... Between with them he found a tile, like a crepe, on which a sign on one side in the nostril is like gold.

People constantly found nuggets or gold dust in the Urals. In the meantime, the “hillockers” were still ravaging the ancient barrows in search of gold in the old fashioned way. Soon the need for this disappeared - in early XIX century, a real gold rush began in Russia, and it got to the point that even gold mines stopped their work - why are they needed when gold is literally under your feet?

By the middle of the 19th century, half of the world's gold was mined in the country - the scale increased many times over. The gold reserves 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

The war greatly reduced Russia's gold reserves. 75 million rubles were sent to England, guaranteeing 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 in 1915 from Petrograd to Kazan and other cities in the rear. Thus, only half of the entire gold reserve was concentrated in Kazan.

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 became known as "Kolchak's gold". The Whites took possession of 650 million rubles, which amounted to approximately 490 tons of pure gold in ingots and coins: "The trophies are incalculable, Russia's gold reserves of 650 million have been captured."

The captured gold was partly transported by steamboats to Samara, the capital of the anti-Bolshevik Committee of the members of the Constituent Assembly. From Samara, gold moved to Ufa, and then to Omsk, where it came into direct possession of the Kolchak government.

In 1919, gold was loaded into wagons and sent along the Trans-Siberian Railway, which at that time was controlled by the Czech corps, which had lost confidence in the admiral. When the train with gold arrived at the Nizhneudinsk station, 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 Social Revolutionaries, who handed him over to the Bolshevik authorities, who immediately shot the admiral. The Czech corps returned 409 million rubles to the Soviets in exchange for a communication to let them out of the country.

But what happened to the remaining 236 million?

Where is the gold?

According to one version, that same ill-fated 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.

In confirmation of this, they usually cite the fact that immediately after the return of the corps to their homeland, the largest Legiabank, a bank founded by Czech legionnaires, is usually cited. However, there is no evidence of this, moreover, the missing gold could not be enough to establish 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 civil war- Colossal sums were allocated for support, which, according to conspiracy theorists, were previously stolen from Kolchak's gold. However, according to the most conservative estimates, the amount of subsidies exceeded even 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 is the Maryina Griva lock in the Ob-Yenisei Canal, since a 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 bars were allegedly found. There are reports that part of the gold was flooded in the Irtysh, while others believe that the Czech corps pushed part of the wagons with gold into Baikal so that the Reds would not get them. In 2013, archaeologist Aleksey Tivanenko reported that he managed to find Kolchak’s gold by descending 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.

Member of the Public Council for Foreign and Defense Policy Mark Masarsky - about the possible outcome of the exciting detective story that began in 1918

SCHEME "VLADIVOSTOK - YOKOHAMA HURRY BANK"

- This story, Mark Veniaminovich, reads more interesting than any detective story. Where do we start?

From the fact that until 1917 the gold reserves of Russia were determined by an astronomical figure - 1337 tons. No country in the world (except the US) could even come close to it. When the Germans came close to Petrograd, the tsarist government prudently ordered the evacuation of the gold reserves away from the front, dividing it between Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan.

On the night of August 7, 1918, a small detachment of the White Guard Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Kappel seized all the "Kazan" gold - 507.1 tons worth 651.5 million rubles. And already in November it is in Omsk, near Kolchak. His nearly 100,000-strong army was in dire need of weapons, and they could only be purchased abroad. The gold of tsarist Russia flowed there.

- How?

The scheme was simple and reliable. The "golden" Kolchak echelons were sent to Vladivostok (out of four, three reached the place, one was captured and looted by ataman Semenov), where their contents were reloaded into the basements of the local branch of the State Bank. And then, either directly or through the Syndicate firm, which was specially created from the banks of the United States, England and Japan, an agreement was concluded with a foreign partner on a loan or the supply of weapons. To secure a loan, the so-called "mortgage gold" was transferred to a foreign bank.

Kolchak transferred gold to many countries. But most of the money went to Japan, where the admiral's main counterparty was Yokohama Hurry Bank, the only Japanese bank at that time that had official permission to conduct foreign exchange transactions.

But the Japanese did not deliver weapons to Kolchak. And the gold was not returned.

TWO IMMORTAL AGREEMENTS

Back in 1996, from the rostrum of the Russian State Duma, one of its leaders directly said: "We have everything Required documents to demand from Japan the return of our gold. " What documents were they talking about?

These are two Russian-Japanese financial agreements, signed in October 1919, to provide the Kolchak government in Omsk with a loan secured by pure gold in two bills of lading, equivalent to 20 million and 30 million yen - about 60 tons of gold. We searched for these documents all over the world, but found them in Moscow, among the unsorted rubble of the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And the originals! The pioneers were graduate students and students of the Diplomatic Academy, students of Professor Vladlen Sirotkin, who shoveled through thousands of unexamined documents.

The finds were two loan agreements between a Japanese banking syndicate headed by Yokohama Hurry Bank and a representative of the State Bank of Russia in Tokyo, I.G. Shchekin, speaking on behalf of the Omsk government. I emphasize that I will not return to this again: these were legal agreements at the interstate level for the manufacture of weapons by the Japanese military factory for Kolchak's army.

We searched for these documents all over the world, but found them in Moscow, among the unsorted rubble of the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

In October - November 1919, the Japanese received Russian gold, which is recorded in the preliminary "Information Report of the Bank of Japan" for 1919. Moreover, this information was also leaked to the Japanese press. "Yesterday, Russian gold worth 10 million yen arrived in the city of Tsuruga on account of a loan to the Omsk government in the amount of 30 million yen," the Toke Niti Niti newspaper informed readers on November 3, 1919.

The total value of the gold received by the Japanese side from the Kolchak administration in the form of a pledge for the promised arms deliveries amounted to 54,529,880 gold rubles.

- Kolchak, as we remember, did not help much ...

Yes, just a couple of weeks after the "golden" transfer, a series of defeats for the Kolchak army followed, it retreated in panic from Omsk. What happened next is well known: the defeat near Irkutsk, the capture of Kolchak and his death. It was then that the Japanese side seized on the excellent opportunity not to deliver the promised "due to the absence of the addressee." And it's trite to appropriate Russian gold. As a result, the loan was realized for only 300 thousand dollars, the weapon was received by the Japanese satellite ataman Semenov.

And this was only the beginning of the plunder of the royal treasury.

INGOTS "ON HONOR"

I guess that you mean the robbery seizure by the Japanese of 25 pounds of gold in the Khabarovsk branch of the State Bank of Russia. This was stated in the telegram of the People's Commissariat of Finance of the RSFSR dated November 21, 1918.

Not only this. The biggest "golden jackpot" was broken by the Japanese thanks to the betrayal of Kolchak's General Sergei Rozanov. On the night of January 29-30, 1920, the Japanese cruiser Hizen moored right in front of the building of the Vladivostok branch of the State Bank standing on a hill. The troops that landed from it cordoned off the territory, an assault group burst into the bank - it was led by Rozanov, dressed in the uniform of a Japanese officer. And the operation was commanded by Japanese intelligence colonel Rokuro Izome - the chief specialist in "Kolchak" gold on Far East.

Within two hours, about 55 tons of Russian gold, without any receipts and acts, were moved from bank cellars to the holds of a Japanese cruiser. Of course, the city authorities filed a formal protest with the Japanese government. Of course, a criminal case was initiated against General Rozanov for theft on an especially large scale.

But Japan did not even bother to answer the ultimatums.

The medal also had another side. White generals carried tons of gold to the east in their carts. But, pursued by the Bolsheviks and Chinese hunghuz bandits scurrying around Manchuria, they often faced a fateful choice: either to be captured and say goodbye to gold, or ...

Give it to the preservation of the only "real" power in Manchuria at that time - to the Japanese. And "light" to get away from the chase.

On November 22, 1920, the head of the logistics of Kolchak's army, General Petrov, transferred 22 boxes of gold for temporary storage to the head of the occupying Japanese military administration in Transbaikalia and Manchuria, Japanese colonel Rokuro Izome.

On February 13, 1920, the foreman of the Ussuri Cossack army, Klok, transferred to the commander of the 30th Japanese infantry regiment, Colonel Sluga, two boxes and five bags of gold from 38 pounds of gold confiscated by the White Guards in the Khabarovsk office of the State Bank.

Let us also recall the 33 boxes of gold that were handed over to the Japanese side in March 1920 and placed in the Osaka branch of the Chosen Bank. This is evidenced by the minutes of the Tokyo District Court dated March 9, 1925.

Let's add 143 boxes of gold, which General Semenov handed over to the Japanese Colonel H. Kurosawa in March 1920 in Chita...

And also General Istrov gave the Japanese 1 million 270 thousand gold rubles, General Podtyagin - one and a half million gold rubles, financial agent of the Ministry of Finance of the tsarist government Konstantin Miller - 10 million gold rubles ...

- Was this gold given to the Japanese on receipt?

Not always. Who and under the "word of honor" ...

SECRET FUND OF THE KWANTUNG ARMY

Recently, the Kyodo Tsushin agency reported that representatives of the ruling circles of Japan took an active part in the illegal import of Russian capital ...

Yes, the former president of the Japan Credit Bank, Yoshio Tatai, managed to prove that at least four tons of Russian gold was thievishly taken out of Russia on the direct orders of the Japanese government. And personally, Finance Minister Takahashi is involved in the secret transfer of 9.1 tons of Russian gold in 186 boxes to the country.

By the way, most of the gold embezzled by the Japanese, as shown by a parliamentary investigation conducted in Japan in March 1925, went to the "secret fund" of the Kwantung Army. This fund was managed by the future prime minister of the country, General Giichi Tanaka, who by the end of 1922 had concentrated many tons of Russian gold for a huge amount at that time - more than 60 million yen.

A few years will pass, and thanks to Russian gold, the Kwantung Army will turn into a real "state within a state" in the expanses of Northern China and Korea ...

CHANCE TO CLOSE THE "GOLD" TOPIC

- I'll put the question point-blank: Russia retained the rights to the gold taken from it?

Undoubtedly. Soviet Union was the legal successor of the Russian Empire and all regimes on its territory until the 1920s inclusive. As well as, according to the Paris Convention, the Russian Federation turned out to be the legal successor of the Russian Empire and all regimes on its territory. Let's remember how foreign contractors have always dealt with us: "you have to - pay." And we state that Article 8, fixed in the agreements of October 6 and 19, 1919, has not lost its force: "The State Bank of Russia remains the manager of the gold deposit and, upon request, can return it from Osaka to Vladivostok, paying only six percent of the costs of" return transfer".

I repeat once again: Russia has the full and legal right to demand the return of collateral gold.

- Do our Japanese partners know about it?

In fact, they never really kept secrets. And until 1925, they calmly waited to see if Soviet Russia would demand the return of gold deposits under the 1919 agreements. Will it require recognition of the legitimacy of the signed agreements? Didn't demand. And in June 1927, Yokohama Hurry Bank re-registered part of the pledged gold into government assets for 62 million yen. And then every ten years the Japanese did this banking operation, the profit from which went straight to the treasury. Over 90 years, more than six billion US dollars have accumulated, at the lowest interest rates.

Estimated cost of building two nuclear power plants.

Russia has the full and legal right to demand the return of collateral gold

- It is logical to demand the return of interest money and pledged gold to Russia...

Not so simple. When this topic was raised in the media in the 1990s, the Japanese, at the request of the Russian Foreign Ministry, reported: there is no Russian gold in Japan. I will not delve into their argumentation - it does not stand up to criticism. The root of the problem lies in the mentality of the Japanese, which I have studied well over the years of my life in the Far East. The Japanese, it seems to me, will never admit that they stole Russian gold. For them, preserving their national honor and their face before the world is much more important than any economic interests.

Let's make a "politically correct" look that Japan has not stolen anything from us. And we will do as Indonesia once did. After the completion of the Japanese occupation, the devastated country did not begin to extort debts from the former aggressor, but agreed with him on multi-billion dollar investments in the Indonesian economy. They not only revived Indonesia, but also brought considerable taxes to the state treasury along the way ...

- Instead of political litigation - a business plan?

Exactly. Do the Japanese need electricity? Need. Does Russia need to break the economic blockade that the United States (and its ally Japan) actually arranges for us in the Far East? Without any doubt.

Japan owes Russia, according to my calculations, six billion US dollars. Why not ask the Japanese government to act as a guarantor of energy investments and let Japan's Tokyo-Mitsubishi Bank (the successor to Yokohama Hurry Bank, today the largest in the world) invest that six billion in the construction of two nuclear power plants in the Russian Far East? Their energy can be supplied to the island of Honshu via a sea cable (there is a corresponding project developed Russian Institute.) Moreover, it will be supplied at a reduced cost until the Russian side reimburses investors for all the money invested in the construction of stations. After that, Japanese investors leave the NPP co-owners and Russia owns two modern plants built using safe, "post-Chernobyl" technology.

- You do not believe in the direct return of "Kolchak's gold"?

There is no real "Kolchak's gold". Ingots and Russian coins have long been melted down. But there is a geopolitical and economic reality, when the ability to negotiate and compromise is more expensive than any money. There will be no losers in the investment scenario: Japan receives cheap electricity, Russia returns its gold reserves in the form of two nuclear power plants.

And forever closes the topic of "Russian gold in Japan."

- Does this project have a chance to be realized?

I think the time has come for that. The implementation of the "Indonesian option" of investment would be an asymmetric response to American plans for uncontested supplies of overseas shale LNG to the Far East region. And for the Russian economy - the Far Eastern analogue of the "Southern Gas Stream".

The bitter grin of history: "Yokohama Hurry Bank", and then "Tokyo Ginko", created on its basis, is the only one in Japan that worked securely with foreign currency until the mid-60s. And the Land of the Rising Sun should thank its northern neighbor for this. After all, it was Russian gold that participated in the formation of the Japanese "economic miracle" ...

Historical gratitude is a perishable product. Russia has experienced this bitter truth more than once

Gold - on trams

“It amuses me,” O. Budnitsky told AiF, “when they report: an underwater bathyscaphe is preparing to raise the golden treasures of the Russian treasury from the bottom of Lake Baikal. What, I think, well done: they immediately decided to go down to the bottom of Lake Baikal. There is no need to read books first.

In 1913, Russia had the third largest gold reserve in the world (after the USA and France): 1 billion 695 million rubles, which is approximately equal to 60 billion dollars at today's exchange rate.

During the war years, our country took colossal loans abroad, depositing gold as collateral for war loans. In addition, according to financial agreements to maintain the exchange rate of the pound sterling (after all, all allies were interested in its stable exchange rate, it was in pounds that they were credited) gold was sent to England. Russia borrowed money, according to Budnitsky, 13 times more than the cost of gold sent abroad.

The Bolsheviks refused to pay these debts. During the visit M. Gorbacheva to Great Britain in 1989 they were written off, and the balances stored in one of the banks went to pay the claims of individuals and companies.

In France, Russian monetary obligations ended up in the hands of small investors, not the state. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people who once bought Russian securities, which were considered in the early twentieth century. very reliable. Even in the 1920s. they were quoted on the stock exchange: many were waiting from day to day for the fall of the Bolshevik regime. Some Russian swindlers turned their "remaining" valuables in Russia into cash. One of them turned out to be Count Alexei Tolstoy, who sold his non-existent estate to one gullible Frenchman: the writer used the description of the estate from his own story "Nikita's Childhood".

Already in the 1990s. Russia pledged to pay France 400 million dollars in compensation for the debts of tsarist Russia.

At the beginning of 1915, the gold reserves were taken from Petrograd to Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod, away from the front. After October revolution From the offices of the State Bank in Moscow, Samara, Tambov, gold was also delivered to Kazan, where more than half of the entire gold reserve of the former empire was concentrated.

In August 1918, a detachment of lieutenant colonel Vladimir Kappel and the military units of the Czechoslovaks captured Kazan along with a gold reserve in the amount of more than 645 million gold rubles. The Bolsheviks managed to take out only 100 boxes with a total value of 6 million gold rubles.

From the Kazan bank to the pier they were transported on ... trams (the only case in world history), where they were reloaded onto ships and sent along the Volga.

Honest Russians

Russian gold in the hands Kolchak, partially (in the amount of more than 190 million rubles) went to the UK, France, the USA and Japan for the purchase of weapons, uniforms and other needs. By the way, it was not so easy to sell it: at first, buyers were afraid - what if the state recovers and the gold will have to be returned?

Working in the archives of the Hoover Institute at Stanford and in a number of others, Oleg Budnitsky found out the fate of the entire royal reserve. Losses were small: about 0.1% of the value of all gold. The researcher looked through the accounting documents of the funds Russian embassies in largest countries, original statements of the State Bank, Kolchak's financial papers. Not a single document confirms the version about the echelon with gold drowned in Baikal!

And then everything was recorded: the purchase of rifles, uniforms, the charter of ships, expenses for the maintenance of the Russian diplomatic corps, for the purchase of steam locomotives and rails, pension payments (for example, the widow of Admiral S. O. Makarova) ... Up to payment for the persecution of "various kinds of insects" in the building of the Russian trade mission in New York.

The diplomatic service worked well even many years after the fall of the empire. In Paris, there was a Council of Russian Ambassadors, no longer accountable to anyone. His last financial action was the payment in 1957 for the repair of the hostel of the former sisters of mercy: the old women received a modest allowance from France for the life of the old woman, but they had to ask their “government” to whitewash the walls and replace the floorboards.

Why were there no embezzlers among the leaders of emigration? Did they grow up in a now forgotten age of honor? Or simply did not know that the old world collapsed forever? And if power is restored, then they will be asked for everything?