This happened in 1989, at a time when no one in the Soviet Union knew about coin searching using a metal detector. I acquired my first device later, in the early nineties, when units of the Soviet Army were being withdrawn from Estonia. It was an army metal detector, bought from a familiar battalion commander from a military unit with a funny name invented by soldiers — «Africa”, in fact, it was bought to search for war items, but more on that another time. In that golden era, the late 80s, I was engaged in attic searches, especially since there were plenty of untouched houses of the tsarist and first bourgeois buildings. The most important thing is that privatization and return of property to their owners had not yet occurred, since these were the times of the decline of the Soviet Union. There were plenty of finds, the attics were mostly accessible, most of them were open or locked with a simple control lock that could be opened with any key. In fact, every attic kept the secrets of past eras and their owners, either it was household garbage, or they were hiding places located in the sandy backfill of the attic. One fine day, another trip to the attic, which for some reason was very difficult to get into due to the constant presence of residents and their activities on the staircase. It seems that all the residents of the house were keeping a secret; it is unknown what they are protecting. It was in this attic that there hung a hefty barn lock, but as it turned out, it could only be opened with a bent wire. Climbing the spiral staircase, which, as usual, creaked treacherously, one had to walk along the narrower part converging towards the center, because in this place the staircase creaked much less than its trampled wide area. Walking past the apartment, where behind the door someone was cheerfully preparing another portion of fried potatoes with onions, I slowed down and slowly crept higher. I made my way to the treasured attic door, where through the cracks one could already see a dusty atmosphere untouched by time, filled with the aromas of grandmother’s chests of drawers, mothballs and the pleasant, slightly vanilla smell of dry wooden beams. Having struggled with opening the door, I was already anticipating how I would now dive into the bedding of sea sand. The premonition of the discovery did not leave me from the moment I saw this house for the first time. Having entered, I immediately turned right and dived under the eaves; along the protruding support beam, I professionally made a long kapok with my hand from the eaves itself along the beam. And almost immediately I felt a hand pull out a heavy square package. It was a box, a 1938 medical calendar box with the recipient’s address and two postage stamps with Hindenburg’s profile. The name and surname on the box were carefully erased, but the address of the house and apartment remained. The house was the same.
The box contained thick pistol cartridges with cupronickel-coated bullets, as well as parts of a pistol magazine: a spring, a feeder and a lower magazine cover, with traces of gross physical violence. Literally after a couple of passes, my hands grabbed a heavy, lead-heavy triangular bundle in paper, pulling it out of the sand, practically with a pig squealing. There was no doubt that this was exactly what I came here for. It was he! Having torn the paper, in the attic darkness, under a bunch of various patents on the frame, the inscription «English was clearly visible. Order». It was a perfectly preserved Colt M 1911 pistol in blue bluing. As it turned out later, someone tried to pull out the magazine, which had become stuck due to dried grease, using a tool, but to no avail. Leaving it where I found it, I continued my search, almost immediately resting my hands on something wrapped in a rag. With a feverish movement, I pulled this package towards me and it, with difficulty, began to come out, but at that time I heard someone going up the stairs, probably that the noise of my search activity forced me to take a break from preparations and go up to the attic. A grumpy, elderly woman displeasedly and indignantly asked what the hell I was doing here, but my unconvincing, although truthful, answer was about searching for various household items, beer and pharmacy bottles, candy packaging, Montpensier jars, grease and shoe blackening, which, however, I had already managed to stuff into my pocket during the search, as well as the demonstration of the contents of my pockets and stories about my finds did not make any impression on the visitor, and she forced me to quickly leave the attic and not appear here again, otherwise they threatened to call the police. Therefore, I left the attic with nothing except a cardboard box of ammunition. On the same day I tried to return, but in vain — I again met the same aunt, who did not have time to notice me, because she was doing some household chores in the barn, in the courtyard of the house. I decided to postpone everything until tomorrow, figuring that the next morning most residents should be at work. Climbing the stairs, a person jumped out of the apartment, which yesterday exuded the aromas of fried potatoes, shouting — in a squeaky voice, according to which I had to urgently get out of this house. Due to the fact that my appearance is unfamiliar to her and I hardly have any friends in this house, because only decent and intelligent people live in this house, and my appearance spoke of something completely different. A dusty and stained civil defense jumpsuit, plus shaggy and unkempt curly hair.
