Where to start with this story? Probably because each of us dreams of finding a treasure and, at the same time, has difficulty believing in stories about how someone else found a treasure, especially if this story is not confirmed by beautiful photos.
What can I say? I saw a photo of this treasure in person, but you, our dear readers, will have to take my word for it. Where to start the story? Probably from the description of the main character. There’s a guy in our village named… Oh, what’s his name? Like Sashka, or Tolik??? I know for sure that everyone calls him Albanian. It seems like his father was from Albania, well, that’s what he told his mother and relatives when they met. They lived together in our village in the early 90s, so that dad ran away with one sports bag of his things.
And, the mother raised her son alone, an ordinary everyday story. The guy grew up normal, intelligent, and a non-drinker, which for provincial Russia is already a bonus to one’s well-being in life. He works as a taxi driver for our local taxi service. Well, as a service))) it’s not an aggregator, but there is a common telephone and four (+- 1) people who taxi for a reasonable fee from 8 am to 12 midnight. Why, plus or minus one, I think you can guess)))
In general, the Albanian guy is a normal guy. We periodically communicate with him on the general topic of being a cop in the old days. He has two devices, a Bounty Hunter and, last year, he bought a 705 Turk. How does communication go in such cases? We take out our smartphones and start bragging to each other about our finds. Naturally, with a neat explanation of where and what was found. I remember once that he showed me a photo of finds from an interesting village from the time of Peter the Great. He said that he found it on the shore of a forest lake. Naturally, he resolutely kept silent about which lake. So, of the finds (rings, scales, crosses), the most interesting was the medallion with the image of the Virgin Mary. The image was hand-drawn under smalt. The find was simply amazingly preserved; forest sand mixed with peat was an ideal environment for preservation. I remember how I once found three kopecks in cabinet-preserved condition.
But that’s another story, but let’s go on topic. As I said above, the Albanian is a smart guy and not a lazy person, which is why he started working as a ferrous metal miner three years ago. He has a Ural motorcycle with a large sidecar, which means that in his free time from work and household chores, he digs ferrous metal in the forest and in field camps. It’s a good business, even more profitable three years ago, when the field and tractor mills in our area were still untouched by the shovels of diggers.
And so, last year, Albanian and I crossed paths in the parking lot of our central store. He was waiting for one of the taxi clients. Usually it’s like we met, shook hands, made a couple of routine jokes about the weather, and went about our business. And then he, with his face beaming with joy, jumped out of the car and, without the on-duty “zratste,” said in a half-whisper, in a voice of complete malicious self-satisfaction.
– Oh, I found a treasure.
I looked at him appraisingly, the bastard wasn’t lying. Only a person who has recently received a significant freebie can shine like a copper teapot.
– Kolis. Where, what, how? Are there any photos?
Photos were available. A small treasure trove of silver coins worth 200-250 in a clay pot. Ten kopecks, twenties and half-fifty kopecks and three and a half kopecks from the times of Catherine the Great. Maybe Elizabeth was there, but, you know, this can only be recognized by her age.
And, naturally, I, not because the toad began to strangle, but purely out of professional interest, wanted to know where he found such happiness?
– So, this is it, I found it on Stepanovka (the name of our location has been changed, no need to rummage through Google maps)
— On Stepanovka??? “I was surprised and immediately remembered that four years ago, in the spring I walked this Stepanovka along the old grass along, across, perpendicularly and with a horse in the letter “G”.
Stepanovka, a typical endangered village. The road is asphalt all the way to the village, of the former 80 residential houses there are two left, there are still five houses under summer residents, more than half of the village is foundation pits, filled to the top with household garbage since the 90s. In general, everything is as we like it.
I began to think and reflect, how is this so? He found the treasure, but I absolutely passed by and didn’t understand it? There is only one logic to my conclusion. In littered areas, with the fifth or twentieth tin can dug up, the digger subconsciously begins to ignore signals that the length of the tone is more than a standard coin; it happens that the treasure is completely missed. Oh, the Albanian was there digging for scrap metal and, of course, digging for anything the size of a tin can.
And so it happened that, among other household garbage, at the level of the line of barns, at a depth of slightly more than a spade bayonet, he dug up a pot with treasure from the times of Catherine the Great. So, I thought. What if this is true? What if a ferrous metal digger has a much higher chance of finding treasure in such littered places than an ordinary digger of coins and other antiquities???
An interesting question, what do you, dear readers, think about this???
