Lately, more and more often I have been able to meet novice digger comrades on the field. Let's wait, have a smoke, and talk. And, as a rule, the same question always arises for me. And, have I been to this or that farm? On the maps of Mende and PGM in our area, more than two dozen farms are indicated, where now there are either dense forests, or the remains of summer milkings, or it is generally unclear where this farm actually was. And yet, the desire to find these very farms is a natural impulse of any competent treasure hunter.
However, in fact, going to such places brings nothing but disappointment to the diggers. At best, you can find a lunar landscape of hundreds of unfilled holes. But, usually, today in such places you can find caponiers of unburied pits and traces of the activity of ferrous metal hunters.
I remember how I myself, in the first spring season, tramped 15 kilometers to one promising tract. You can get to that place by transport only in the summer, and only if there has been no rain for a month. So, on that tract I saw two rows of mounds. As I later found out, ten years ago, before I arrived, there were diggers there. They paid a local farmer money, but the farmer did not tell me exactly how much. And he used the tractor's blade to remove the top layer of the tract, and the diggers then dug for a week. That is, as we can understand, this was 15 years ago. So, in our time, when the country’s population already has one and a half million metal detectors in their hands, I think it’s stupid to hope to find something unbroken and undug using old maps.
In my practice, I was able to find interesting unexplored places only using the map of the Red Army. I have written about this many times, but I will tell you again. I had a case when I noticed that on the map of the Red Army the neighboring village was drawn with three streets. Then, as now, there are only two streets in the village. This became interesting to me, and indeed it turned out that back in the 60s there was an abandoned street there; the residents of those houses left because the street was not electrified. And now, in place of that street, there is a plowed field. How well the first two seasons were dug there.
So, dear friends, to be honest, I no longer believe in the tales of diggers and all sorts of novice bloggers about unbroken and fatty places that were found using old maps. And, even more, I am touched by stories about all kinds of secret cards. Bought for a lot of money from city archive employees or museum workers.
Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe, indeed, one of our readers managed to find an unbroken place in Mende this year. Write. It will be interesting to hear about your rare case.
