Do legends, stories and gossip help you find treasure? Muskrat hat, Mercedes and plastic windows

Ever since I bought my first metal detector and became seriously interested in treasure hunting, I began collecting stories about treasures found in our area. So, I had heard these stories before from old people or drunken men, but somehow I didn’t really remember them. The information was unnecessary for me, but now I can confidently recall at least three dozen stories or tales about who, where, when and under what circumstances found treasures in our area.

Some of these stories are untrue gossip, and some are absolutely plausible stories from the perspective of the original source.

Well, for example. One familiar grandfather, from a neighboring village, for which I once made a fence, told me a story about how his In the early 90s, neighbor Miksha found a treasure trove of Catherine’s rubles in his garden. The garden was plowed in the spring, the tractor passed through the arable land, and there white circles stretched out on the damp, dark soil. The man collected the money, took it to the city, there, at the market, he agreed on a price and sold it to outbid for non-ferrous metal.

In general, the village lived widely and beautifully for a month. Anyone could come to visit Misha. And there: boxes of colla, Royal alcohol in cans, shish kebab in buckets, and all sorts of Snickers and Mars in bags. Take, drink, eat as much as you like, but you can’t take it with you, here and only here. And, with the remaining money, Mikhail installed plastic windows in his house. The first plastic windows were all over the area.

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Mikhail himself died at the beginning of the 2000s. He worked as a shift worker in an oil industry, and on his next trip there, he was crushed by something at the drilling rig. He spent a month in the hospital and was buried there. But no matter who in that village you ask about this story, everyone responds with kind words. They say that Khrushchev promised us communism, and Mishka fulfilled his promise (forgot his last name)

Oh, here’s another story, once on a friend’s birthday I got into a conversation over a drink at the table, and let’s tell stories about treasures. In fact, a good welcome, an interesting topic is not for you to scold Putin, or praise, or listen to the eternal moaning of grandmothers about the size of the pension. In general, as a rule, after my stories, if anyone has something to tell on the topic, they will definitely tell it.

So two stories were told to me.The first is about how, in the late 80s, a young agronomist who came to our village on assignment was given a state farm house from the maneuverable fund for housing. And, if anyone doesn’t know, then such “collective farm” houses are, as a rule, houses that were requisitioned from dispossessed and exiled rich peasants. The young agronomist decided, no one remembers his name, he didn’t live long with us, and quickly went for a promotion in the city. So, he decided to settle in and started renovations on the very first weekend. I tore off the old wallpaper, and there a wooden strip right under the ceiling fell off. A guy looks, and there’s a pot in a niche. And in the pot there is half a ruble of Nicholas II.

Well, it means that the agronomist, as expected, took this treasure to the district police officer, who told him: “Oh, what did you bring me? I already have a lot of problems, go straight to the State Bank.” The village branch of the State Bank was located , just opposite the police stronghold. The guy brought silver to the State Bank, they looked at him as if he was crazy and said that they do not accept silver, the Gokhran order is to accept only gold. When asked what to do now? They answered: “If he’s so correct and honest, take him to the city and hand him over to the local history museum”

The agronomist sent everyone away with a strong word and kept the pot of silver for himself. Very quickly, all the children in the village took up a simple craft. They ran to the swamps and hunted muskrats with slingshots. For two muskrat carcasses, the young agronomist received one fifty dollars in silver.

— Why did you guys need silver coins? Where did they go? – I asked Uncle Sasha that he told this story to me and other listeners.

— So, this is how they were repulsed with spinners. The best lures for pike perch and pike are silver and only silver. And that agronomist made hats from muskrats. So, do the arithmetic. Four muskrat carcasses – one hat. One hat is 150-200 rubles from resellers.

Before the collapse of the USSR there were three schools in our village.Two eight-year buildings built before the revolution and one new one, four floors, built at the end of the USSR. In the 90s, when both eight-year schools were closed, all the property was transferred without any inventory to the new school. And, in one of the old schools there was a very rich school museum. As former students told me. But I myself am not local, which is why I know many stories only from the words of eyewitnesses. So, they say that the school museum had a very rich collection of silver coins. For decades, the pioneers brought school history teachers objects that were valuable, from a historical and other point of view.

So they exchanged coins, samovars, copper icons and even working gramophones in exchange for an A in history. Well, it’s a profitable business, anyway, parents, as a rule, threw these items into the trash as unnecessary. Eh, there were times, they say that once upon a time there was a marble statue lying in a landfill in one of the alleys. But that’s not what we’re talking about.

When I learned that the exhibits from the museum of the old school were transferred to the new one, I decided, as a local historian, to find out their fate. In general, as it turned out, some of the property was handed over to the caretaker for storage, and some was handed over to the history office. And, when asked directly where three hundred silver royal coins from the collection of the school museum went, the caretaker and the historian shrugged their shoulders in surprise. “What other coins??? There were no coins. And, in general, in our school, in twenty years, the roof leaked five times, you know how much after this damaged property had to be written off???»

But, as people say, and people won’t lie))), well, the school caretaker in the 90s had the very first Mercedes in the village. Our roads are the same show-offs, but still a Mercedes. Old, rusty, no spare parts can be found, but Mercedes.