This story happened in the fall of 2016.
Walking through one of the squares of the hero city of Volgograd after a delicious lunch, enjoying the sun and beautiful weather, I accidentally look down and see.
At first I thought it was some kind of traffic jam or a badge from the times of the Union (the first thought was a peeling October star), but something clicked in my brain and I took a closer look, it turned out it didn’t seem like it!
Having picked up an incomprehensible-looking icon, I realized that he was not alone — There were THREE of them! Yes, and stuck together with each other. Apparently turbulent times forced them to hold on to each other, so that 100 years later I would pick them up on a lunchtime walk.
Already holding it in my hands, I realized what kind of badges they were, they turned out to be tokens «In memory of the Great War of 1914-1915». Through the storm of the Civil War, through the fierce battles of the Great Patriotic War, these tokens lay.
Thankfully, the wonders of hostile technology with built-in cameras are no longer uncommon and are always at hand, allowing me to take pictures of such an unexpected and mega-pleasant find.
Two tokens with losses — one’s ear is completely torn off, the other’s is broken, but the one in the middle — completely intact
I got plenty of adrenaline and, one might say, skipped off to work — lunch was ending. When I came to work, I realized that there would be no more work, because emotions took over my head. I sat and made hypotheses about where and how these commemorative tokens came from and why no one had discovered them before. There were a lot of versions, but I still leaned towards the one that this park had recently been landscaped and the land for filling the border paths was imported. Apparently they took the soil from somewhere and, along with the cultural layer (fortunately, there is plenty of it in Volgograd), brought it to the park, and the workers scattered it with shovels, not paying attention to the contents.
Thought — if there are three, there may be more?! The next day I decided to purposefully go to the park and take a closer look again. After dinner, taking a pie, smiling at the sun, he headed to the park. Arriving at the place where the find was found, and looking around it, I was stunned — These tokens were scattered everywhere!
Being dressed according to the dress code at work, I climbed into the very wet ground — the excitement consumed me! One, two, three more stuck together, and so on — You can see it in the photo. I forgot about lunch and my appearance, and how strange I look in the eyes of passers-by: a big guy in a suit jumping through the mud of the square and picking up something from the ground and taking pictures on his phone — If I could see myself from the outside, I would wet myself with laughter.
The result of the second day of the search was 10 more tokens. Of course, I climbed and plowed the entire surface up and down — I thought it was over.
But the thought that now it was time to resort to the help of the device began to overcome my brain.
There was a nuance that would interfere with the operation of the device — shallow laid electrical cable for park lighting lamps — and he was just passing by the place of discovery. Plus to everything — the park is located almost in the center of the city and the movement of people in it both during the day and, as it later showed, at night, is unreal — dog walkers, lovers, athletes, just strolling groups of people and drunks. And also the outfits of the teaching staff, who would definitely be attracted by a person with a device walking in the park!
I walked around a few more times and looked with my eyes — I didn’t find anything except jars, fragments of old bottles and all sorts of junk. Well, a couple more coins of Nicholas II were also found on the surface. And then the first snowball fell — so I had to put off the idea of finding a device.
The snow lay there for a week and, as is customary in our region, began to rapidly melt, leaving behind dampness and dirt. It was decided to go with my friends to the park. Now remembering this masquerade — funny to the point of tears, and then — adrenaline and anticipation of finds gave me a serious mood. And just imagine: late evening, a group of very large men, one with a package (which contained a coil from the device, and the unit itself in the sleeve), others with small garden hoes — circus in Durov’s corner and that’s all! As it turned out, my fears about the cable were not in vain, everything and everyone was phoning, dirt, people running back and forth, despite the late hour, but still!
With jokes and jokes, and not without the help of the device, we found about 15 more tokens. The joy was like that of the Kid who was given a Dog for his birthday!
Dirty, wet, but so happy, we, having divided the finds, went home, agreeing to repeat the outing in a day or two. Unfortunately, the night’s finds were not photographed — there was no time for that. And the next day the frost hit and everything was cancelled. Already in the spring we went out again, but nothing worthwhile was found…
Here’s the story.
Sent by comrade Alexey P.
