How not to waste time looking for new places to dig the old fashioned way. Personal experience

Every experienced digger has his own methods of finding new, good ones. fat and preferably untouched by competitors places to dig. Moreover, the “older” the digger, the more practical experience he has, and therefore there may be more than a dozen such techniques. This happened to me last spring. This is what I want to talk about in my note.

It all started just great. Now, if I hadn’t been there myself, I would never have believed that this was still possible. My friend and I found an unbroken area of about ten courtyards. The improbability of this event was that the tract was located one hundred meters from a residential village and two hundred meters from an asphalt road. And, in addition to the overall picture of the amazing, all this happened not somewhere in the Siberian wilderness, but at a distance of 5-6 hours on the road, by car, from the Moscow Ring Road.

In general, to those who read this and say “Balabol”, I will answer “You have every right to do this.” Because I myself would not believe it. But something like that. Here is a photo from one day of a cop on that tract.

And then, I decided to compare this matter with the overlay of the Yandex satellite on PGM. I look at the map and understand that it is almost an absolute coincidence. I looked at Vetus Maps (and this can be considered blatant advertising, the conspiracy theory has not been canceled) Then, as before three years ago, I placed dots on the “This Place” website. Well, there the overlay showed a completely different point, at a distance of about half a kilometer.

Mmmmmm, it’s not for nothing??? I decided to check this guess at other control points on Vetus Maps. And what a surprise it was when one forest settlement the size of two yards was indicated on the PGM with an accuracy of ten meters. There was such joy at that moment, even if it was shipped by the wagons.

Inspiration, enthusiasm, “Who’s great??? I'm done!!!” well, and everything like that.

I immediately noted two more points on the tracts on the map; judging by the shape, the modern villages were clearly being repaired, which is why it was necessary to also look for the old tracts. Conceived, done, I have some free time and went to check out my new system for finding places.

First of all, I rushed to the outskirts of a very large village. Also on Mende there are 250 households indicated. Whereas the PGM shows that there were three separate estates and they walked along the old road. For three days I hung around there in all possible and expected directions. The result was sad and sad, although for reporting purposes Ded Khabar threw in a scattering of Soviet change.

I won’t leave this village so easily, and in the spring I will definitely make a couple of trips there. The fact is that for two years in a row, the grass did not grow in the spring and in some places it was simply useless to walk with a metal detector. And the expectations that some local summer resident would smoke unsuccessfully were not justified. So, interesting discoveries are definitely waiting for me there in the spring.

The second, in mind, was a tract in the swamps. The current village has been located on a high sand dune since the 19th century, while on the PGM the village is drawn on the bank of a small river and, according to the coordinates, overlooks a drained swamp. In general, the fact that in our area villages during the time of Ivan the Terrible were built in swamps is a completely typical situation. Because in those days the Crimean Tatars came to visit us, like the mother-in-law in the Voronin series.

The search in that area took three difficult trips. Difficult, because the entire area was divided by a large reclamation canal with small branches. It was not possible to cross the channel itself, from which it was necessary to reach the desired point from three different sides. As a result, all efforts were futile and ineffective. Although, you can console yourself with the experience you have gained. However, regarding the last point, the situation became clear only in the summer, when I became interested in metal mining.

While studying the methods of peat extraction and peat mining, I saw and realized that that same canal and branches from it, which were impossible to bypass in the spring, are nothing more than the remains of peat mining using the open or milling method. This is when a special tractor removes the top layer of peat bog 10 centimeters at a time, allows the next layer to dry and removes it again, like a cutter. And so on for several years. In this way, peat can be removed to a depth of two meters.

So, it turns out that there was no point in looking for the site of the old village in that place. However, science, after all.

This is my story. If you liked the note and haven’t subscribed to our channel yet, don’t be shy, it won’t hurt you, and it’s a plus for our karma.