Treasures of Karelia. Mystery of "Nikola Lapotny"

Somewhere, under the old legend, there is still an untouched bundle with the cherished "Catherine", and even with gold chervonets. Who knows...
There is not so much information about treasures in the territory of Karelia. And this is due not so much to its absence, as such, but to a small number of treasures themselves. The region is taiga, sparsely populated, with complex relief. There were no major trade routes here. There are no trading cities and fortresses. Yes, and wars were fought more in the southern regions. Who is interested in fighting waist-deep in a swamp.

So Karelia remained aloof from wholesale digging. But in any case, there are treasures. And the probability of finding a pod with coins of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is quite real. Personally, I have seen in Zaonezhie how in the evenings, after fishing, the men diligently rubbed 10 kopeck coins of 1922-24 to a shine. They broke the house, found a pot in the attic. Only about 3 kg of change. It was in 1998, on Kolgostrov. So the treasures are still waiting for their owners.

Viking legacy
Petrozavodsk archaeologist Andrey Spiridonov counted the number of discovered treasures in the republic and made a rough scheme of their location. The scientist simply entered random information about them into a card file. Over time, he accumulated information about 30 fairly well-documented treasures from the 10th-early 19th centuries. A comparative analysis showed that the treasures were more often the savings of our wealthy ancestors, who hid their “wealth” at the time of danger. Often the Scandinavians "fertilized" the soil with treasures. The Vikings firmly believed that everything they buried in the ground during their lifetime would be with them in the other world. Today, the region of the Svir River, just below the river rapids, is rightfully the richest in treasures. It was here at different times that several treasures were found at once. This is not surprising, archaeologists believe. After all, the very place of discovery of these treasures indicates their connection with the fur trade and trade in the Onega region. Several rich graves of merchants and warriors have been studied in the burial mounds of the 10th-11th centuries in the same section of the Svir River. For example, a pot with 3,280 Arabic, Western and Northern European coins, dug out of the ground in Lodeynoye Pole in 1878, weighed four and a half kilograms.
And the Lodeynopol treasure of almost three thousand and several fragments of silver items, found in 1949 during earthworks, weighed three and a half kilograms. At prices common to the Baltic countries of the 11th century, for a mark of silver (about 200 grams) one could buy a slave or two cows, for one and a half marks - a slave, a good horse or ten pigs. Finally, it is worth mentioning the two most famous treasures discovered at one time in Petrozavodsk. One of them was found in the middle of the 19th century at the mouth of the Neglinka River by soldiers during the construction of the barracks, the other - in 1957 on Svirskaya Street: 300 coins of the 16th-17th centuries.

Coins - per gram
However, most of the "Karelian" treasures include no more than 200 grams of coins. Most likely, this money was once hidden by wealthy peasants. For example, in 1874, seven kilometers from Kolatselga, on the banks of the Kolaga River, a treasure of 355 silver coins weighing 150 grams was found. Most of them belonged to the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. In 1932, a hole was dug in Nyural, and 300 silver coins were found, relating to the reign from Ivan the Terrible to Mikhail Fedorovich. These exhibits could be seen in the Karelian State Museum of Local Lore until they were stolen from the funds in 1952. But 300 coins from the era of Ivan the Terrible, found in 1957 in the village of Reboly on the banks of the Ledmozero, are still kept in the local history museum.

COIN TREASURES OF KARELIA
30 coin treasures were found in Karelia
Once in a lifetime, fortune knocks on the door of every person, but at this time a person often sits in the nearest pub and does not hear any knocking, \u200b\u200b- said Mark Twain. At least 30 residents of Karelia ended up at home when Mrs. Luck decided to visit them - 30 treasures of the 10th-early 19th centuries were found in the republic at different times.

Cauldron with money
The provincial local history literature of the last century reported such finds: in the Povenets district, in the village of Kachchieva, a quarter of a mile from the church, in a field, small oblong silver coins are still found ... In the village of Mannieva, one verst from the church, they also find money in the land, between the villages of Petelnavolok and Maselga, on the stubble, every spring brings small silver oblong coins with water to the road ... ”, in the Vytegorsky district, “one peasant of the village of Lema plow pulled a cauldron of money out of the ground on the field \”.

Traces of past finds were kept in the muntz office at the provincial gymnasium in Petrozavodsk - this collection included silver money from Veliky Novgorod and Pskov, the money of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily Dmitrievich, Boris Godunov, Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov and Alexei Mikhailovich.

The most accurate record of happy finds was made only in the second half of the 19th century. It was then that local lovers of antiquity actively launched their activities, and in Russia the Imperial Archaeological Commission was created, which was entrusted with the function of registering coin treasures.

“I didn’t specifically deal with the subject of treasures,” says Andrey Spiridonov, a Petrozavodsk archaeologist, “and, unfortunately, I never found treasures myself. But he entered random information about them into a card file. By 1995, I already had information about 30 fairly well-documented treasures from the 10th to early 19th centuries. Then I made a review of these findings.

It turns out that all Karelian "treasures" were found by accident. There were no mysterious maps indicating the places where the money was buried. And the treasures more often became the savings of our wealthy ancestors, who hid their "wealth" at the time of danger. Scandinavians often fertilized the soil with treasures. The Vikings firmly believed that everything they buried in the ground during their lifetime would be with them in the other world. And they buried it. Mostly coins. Jewelry, apparently, men in those days preferred to give to women, and not to the earth.

Four kilograms of silver

The most generous for the treasures of the XI century was the twenty-kilometer section of the Svir River, above which the river rapids dangerous for navigation began. As many as six treasures have been found here, four of which were found in Lodeynoye Pole, two in Svirstroy.

- The very place of discovery of these treasures on the natural waterway between Lake Ladoga and Onega indicates the connection of treasures with fur trade and trade in the Onega region, - said Andrei Mikhailovich. — Several rich burial places of merchants and warriors have been studied in the burial mounds of the 10th-11th centuries in the same section of the Svir River. The size of some of the Svir treasures testifies to the wide scope of trade with Prionezhye. For example, a pot with 3280 Arabic, Western and Northern European coins, dug out of the ground in Lodeynoye Pole in 1878, weighed four and a half kilograms. And the Lodeynopol treasure of almost three thousand and several fragments of silver items, found in 1949 during earthworks, weighed three and a half kilograms. At prices common to the Baltic countries of the 11th century, for a mark of silver (about 200 grams) one could buy a slave or two cows, for one and a half marks - a slave, a good horse or ten pigs.

Alas, not all of our ancestors possessed such a state. Most of the finds - nine hoards - include no more than 200 grams of coins. This money, apparently, was hidden by wealthy peasants. For example, in 1874, seven kilometers from Kolatselga, on the banks of the Kolaga River, a treasure of 355 silver coins weighing 150 grams was found. Most of them belonged to the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. In 1932, a hole was dug in Nyural, and 300 silver coins were found, relating to the reign from Ivan the Terrible to Mikhail Fedorovich. These money could be seen in the Karelian State Museum of Local Lore until they were stolen from the funds in 1952. But 300 coins from the era of Ivan the Terrible, found in 1957 in the village of Reboly on the banks of the Ledmozero, are still kept in the local history museum.

Finds from Vinnitsa and Lizhma look more impressive. In 1937, in the village of Vinnitsa, a treasure was found of two thousand coins minted during the reigns from Ivan the Terrible to Mikhail Fedorovich. The treasures were buried at the beginning of the 17th century and obviously belonged to a merchant. And in 1909, during the construction of the railway in the village of Lizhma, a treasure of one and a half thousand silver coins was discovered. Most of these treasures then went from hand to hand.

From under the nose of the governor

In fact, most of what was mined went from hand to hand. The people managed to pull even from under the nose of the governor. So, in Petrozavodsk in 1849, \"near the confluence of the Neglinka River into Onega Lake, when clearing a place for the construction of buildings belonging to the garrison battalion\", they found a treasure trove of silver coins. Of it, only less than 60 pieces came to the then head of the province Pisarev. The rest of the money floated away in an unknown direction. One of the coins was sent by the head of the Olonets mining works, Butenev, to the Imperial Archaeological Society. It turned out to be a dirham minted in Bukhara around 946. So the treasure, apparently, was very valuable. Although none of the experts has yet estimated the market value of the Karelian treasures.

But the inhabitants of the republic were not always so greedy. The latest find is considered to be a treasure from Sandal Island. In 1972, 71 silver coins were collected on an unnamed island near the canal between lakes Nigozero and Sandal. They were wrapped in something and placed in a hole between small boulders. Fishermen who found a treasure hidden around the 10th-15th centuries did not covet the Western European denarii of the 10th-11th centuries, Arab dirhams of the 8th-10th centuries. They gave everything to the Karelian Museum of Local Lore and did not demand any remuneration.

“I think that many more treasures will be found in Karelia,” Andrey Spiridonov says, “which will tell a lot about the history of our region. But this will happen only if the coins are studied by numismatists. And if the new finds do not go hand in hand, but will be transferred to museums.

GIRL ISLAND.
In the folk legends of the Olonets Province, Lithuanian raids on this region are remarkable. In some counties, there are places that bear the names obtained during these raids.
We once mentioned Devichya Gora, in the Pudozh Uyezd, which has been called so since the time when a peasant girl, pursued by the lords (as Lithuania is called here), threw herself into the Vodla River from the steep bank of the Devichya Gora.
The island bears a similar name, on Lake Onega, five versts from the village of Derevyannaya: Devichy-Ostrov. Tradition says that he received this name during the Lithuanian raids. A crowd of enemies, having robbed the neighboring villages and seized one girl, tied her in a boat and went to celebrate on the aforementioned island. While the Lithuanians were indulging in a feast, their captive, rocking the boat, forced it to sail away from the island. The Lithuanians did not pay attention to this, believing that it was impossible for their prey to escape; Meanwhile, the boat was brought to the shore and the girl escaped.
Tradition does not say what happened afterwards to the noisy crowd; adds only that supposedly on the island there are treasures buried once by the Lithuanians.
Olonets provincial bulletin. 1883

Treasure 2-3 June 2008 on the Karelian Isthmus.
For the weekend I went fishing with my wife, child and friends, took fishing rods, spinning rods, a net, and other fishing personal belongings. The trunk of the Patrol Nissan was crammed to the ceiling. I was still thinking whether to take a metal detector or not ...
But still I decided to take it, I think - if there is no bite, I look like with the device. I took my Garik 2500 and my wife's device - ICQ 250.
We arrived at the place at night. Local guys (our friends) were waiting for us. He left his wife and child for the night in the village, while they themselves went to hunt the bream. 5 km rowing and we are there... That night we caught bream about 60 - 70 kg. While sailing on the boat, I talked about my hobby and about the findings. One of the locals (Edik) caught fire on this topic and began to talk about various interesting, in his opinion, places ... I take such stories calmly, but still I listened. In general, we decided to check a couple of farms the next day.
We returned at 6 o'clock in the morning, I did not want to sleep, and I decided to fish with a bait. Fishing with nets, although it gives a lot of fish, is not interesting. I fished until 12 o'clock, then the bite subsided, and I went to the base, to sleep a little. At 16 o'clock I woke up, had a bite to eat and went for Edik to show him the places he was talking about. After a short conversation, we went to the cherished place.
Given the poverty of the Karelian Isthmus for finds, I did not expect anything supernatural from this trip. We stopped at one farm, walked around, waved clubs, found a couple of coins of advice and a bunch of vodka caps. We went to another farm, then to a third, fortunately they were all nearby ... the statistics of the finds were not encouraging. Time for the night and we decided to return to the village.
Moreover, again at night it was planned to go for bream. On the way back, Edik showed a couple more farms and said that next to the base where we stopped, there are foundations in one of the clearings. We brought him to the village, and we ourselves went towards the base. There were still a few hours left before the trip for bream and we decided to walk around with the instruments in the very place near the base ...
The car was left in the middle of the clearing, and they went to wave the instruments. Corks were all littered with. In less than an hour, I stuffed a full pocket with them. I was about to turn off the device, and headed towards the car, but then I dug out the first coin ... 3 kopecks copper Russia, then 1/2 kopeck, then a kopeck, then again three kopecks, and another and another, and another. And all this is literally 20-30 cm from each other ... Thus, in an hour of detecting on an area of 10-12 m2, I filled about 50 coins, Andrey and Oleg continued to collect corks ... Envying me, I hope, with white envy .
When the signals stopped, I decided that it was loose, a wallet, but just in case, I called the guys and we began to remove the turf from this place. The earth pleased with its friability. After removing the sod, we began to go deeper ... And here it is happiness! Coins began to pour right from the shovel! The device was thrown aside and we began to select coins with our hands. Each shovel of earth brought 5-10 coins!!!
And then I struck a shovel on something hard.
I threw away the shovel and began to rake the earth with my hands. And here it is, done! A broken pitcher appeared from the ground! The upper part of the jug was split into fragments and had a sufficient spread ... Apparently, it was once plowed up. And in the lower part lay a decent handful of copper Russia. The white nights helped, but it was still hard to see, we turned on the lamp, a fishing rod also came in handy, which served as a bracket for hanging the lamp over the excavation site, and light a fire, especially since it was quite cool. We got the rest of the copper with the help of a device and a green "sieve" that Skeet gave me, it had been in the car for a long time, and I did not even think that it would come in handy. There was such excitement that there was no time to take pictures, although I did take a few pictures during the dig and even filmed the process of sifting coins ... And only the next day we posed enough with devices and a jar full of coins.
Edik went fishing without us that night...
and we had our own, no less exciting and productive fishing!

THE CITY OF KORELA IS THE CENTER OF LADOGA KARELIA
(according to the archaeological data of A. I. Saksa)
In this article, Ladoga Karelia refers to the eastern part of the Karelian Isthmus and northwestern Ladoga (Ladoga Karelia), in contrast to the western Vyborg part.

The burial in Nukuttalahti on the island of Riekkala near the town of Sortavala, dating back to the 6th century, in our opinion, testifies to the existence, along with hunting trips to Karelia near Ladoga, of the practice of exchanging products of local crafts for jewelry (Saksa 1994, 32). It is this that can explain the falling into the stone mound of decorations of western and eastern origin (Kivikoski 1939, 1-11).
The second of the most ancient burials of the Iron Age was found in the village. Lapinlahti (now Olkhovka) on the southern shore of the lake. Sukhodolsky. It dates back to about 800 (Europaeus 1923, 66-75; Kivikoski 1944, 2-3). The burial, which contained a large number of weapons, tools and jewelry, fixes, in our opinion, the beginning of the emergence of settlement centers by the end of the Merovingian era, denoting a completely new situation in which internal development becomes the determining factor within the territories in which, according to what For some reason, a permanent population is formed. In addition to Lapinlahti, Räisälä (Melnikove), Hovinsaari (the Bolshoi Peninsula on Lake Vuoksa) and Käkisalmi (Priozersk), where finds of things from the Merovingian era were made, should be referred to such centers of population concentration.
The end of the Viking Age in Ladoga Karelia marks, in essence, the onset of a new era. New cemeteries appear in Metsäpirtni Koukunniemi, Lapinlahti Naskalinmäki and Lapinlahti Hennonmäki, Kurkijoki Kuuppala, Sortavala Helyulya. It is significant that these cemeteries, in contrast to military single burials of the previous time, were used for a long time. The number of individual items found is sharply increasing, which already number in the dozens. The proportion of jewelry has increased significantly (about 40 pieces)

Thus, Kyakisalmi, which arose in a number of other similar settlements of the annalistic korela on the isthmus and northwestern Ladoga region, from the end of the 13th century. acquires strategic importance not only due to its location at the mouth of the most important water artery, but also as an urban and administrative (later, probably at the latest - from the first half of the 15th century, and religious) center of Ladoga Karelia. Excavations in 1989-1990 revealed the secret of the origin of the settlement on the fortress island. The early layers discovered by us in the form of a horizon of logs lying on the mainland date from the 12th to the first half of the 13th century. (Le-3810, SU-2084, SU-2085, SU-2088). The horizon of the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th centuries is also clearly distinguished. and later, relating to the second half of the XIV century. (Saksa, Kankainen, Saarnisto, Taavitsainen 1990, 65-68; Saksa 1992, 5-17); for earlier excavations, see: (Kirpichnikov 1979, 52-73). In the layer of sand that covered the lower horizon, a large number of things were found, including beads and jewelry made of bronze and silver, as well as melted pieces of bronze - traces of bronze smelting. Among these, for the most part, Karelian decorations of the 12th-13th centuries. during excavations in the fortress, two whole equal-arm fibulae of the 7th century BC were found. and a fragment of a third, as well as more than a dozen securely dated Viking Age ornaments. Undoubtedly, these things belong to the earliest stage, preceding the construction of the fortress at the beginning of the 14th century. It is not clear whether the oldest things come from the burial ground or whether they are all associated with the ancient Karelian settlement that existed on the island before the arrival of the Swedes and then the Novgorodians at the end of the 13th century.

THE MYSTERY OF "NIKOLA LAPOTNOY"
“I sent 973 wagons from Moscow with various goods to the Kaluga Gate to Mozhaisk. From Mozhaisk, I went along the Old Road to Smolensk, having reached the Medyn and Vyazma districts. Stopped at Kuniy Bor; the river flows from the night to the winter sunrise, and the name of that river is Marchevka, and then I ordered the Russian people on Kun'y Bor to make a stone dam on the dry land, I ordered to grease the dam with clay, and in it I put a slate board and it says where it is supposed to go from Moscow to Mozhaisk.
This is how the text of the storeroom record begins, made, according to legend, in the Time of Troubles by the Polish king Sigizmund (according to another version, the impostor Grishka Otrepiev). The original of this entry, made “on a copper board” in Latin and Polish, according to the old treasure hunters, was in Warsaw, and a list made secretly from it, translated into Russian, was widely distributed among Russian treasure hunters.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that the "treasures of the Polish king" dated to the Time of Troubles - a huge number of treasures were buried during the Time of Troubles, which is confirmed by numerous finds, and this fact rather speaks in favor of the reality of the "treasures of Sigismund". Who they really belonged to is another question.
The historical basis of the legends about the "treasures of Sigismund" is connected with the events of 1609-1612. In the summer of 1609, King Sigismund III (in Russia he was called Zhigimont, from which the folklore name Aglement came about), at the head of a 30,000-strong army, entered the Russian borders engulfed by the Time of Troubles in order to “calm down the rebellion, exterminate the shameless Pretender, overthrow the treacherous tyrant (that is, the Russian Tsar Vasily IV Shuisky), liberate the people, affirm the faith and the church. It was about the conquest of the Russian throne. Part of the Russian boyars came out in support of the claims of Sigismund, believing that this would help pacify the Troubles. “All Russia will meet the desired tsar with joy,” they wrote to Sigismund. - Cities and fortresses will open the gates; the patriarch and the clergy will bless him earnestly. Only let Sigismund not hesitate; Yes, it goes straight to Moscow. However, Smolensk stood in the way of the royal troops, at the walls of which Sigismund got stuck for a whole year and a half. Only a small detachment of hetman Zholkiewski, having separated from the main forces, moved to Moscow and defeated the army of Vasily Shuisky in the battle of Klushin.
The turmoil flared up with renewed vigor. The Poles, with the consent of the Boyar Duma, entered Moscow, and the entire Mozhaisk road from Moscow to Smolensk was controlled by Polish garrisons. The short period of agreement between the invaders and the Boryas elite ended with the Moscow uprising in March 1611, which was brutally suppressed by the regiments, and Moscow itself was burned and plundered. The Poles, according to Karamzin, “robbed the royal treasury, took all the utensils of our ancient crowned bearers, their crowns, wands, vessels, rich clothes to send to Sigismund .. they ripped off the salaries from the icons, divided gold, silver, pearls, stones and precious fabrics” . These trophies, which included a significant part of the royal treasury, were sent to Smolensk to the king along the Mozhaisk road and, according to legend, some of these treasures were hidden along the road near the graveyard of Nikola Lapotny ...
According to one of the legends, the Nikolsky churchyard is called so because here the Polish soldiers, having finally broken their boots on Russian roads, changed their shoes into bast shoes.
Recording on the treasures of Sigismund was widespread among treasure hunters. She went from hand to hand in a variety of versions. The main signs remained unchanged: the center of the “treasure-bearing” area in all versions of the record is the graveyard of Nikola Lapotny (Nikola Lapotnik, Nikola Lapotnikov, etc.), near which, stopping in Kunye Bor, the Polish king allegedly buried his treasures: “There is a churchyard of Nikolai The Wonderworker, even called Nikola Lapotny, and from him there is also the churchyard of the Holy Martyr George, three miles away from one another. Near the graveyard of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker there is a river Khvorostyanka, and another Gremyachka.

A living legend of a Swedish knight.
Treasure hunters of Karelia In one of the picturesque places of Karelia on the lake "Syamozero" about 7 m. The coastline is indented by bays and capes. The shores are mostly low, monotonous.) there is an island “Fokensuari” (The largest island on the lake). According to ancient legend, an old, rich, Swedish knight lived on this island. Swedish war) Before his death, he buried his treasures ... Until now, the foundation of the house in which he presumably lived has remained on the island. According to legend, the person who can ride a horse on the first ice, which froze over in just one night, will be able to find these treasures. No daredevils have yet been found... In the summer, many tourists and treasure hunters sailed by boat and tried to find the treasure, but to no avail!!! Any indigenous person living in the village of “Syargilakhta” can confirm this information.
(The Karelian village of Syargilakhta, located on the shores of Lake Syamozero, 90 km west of Petrozavodsk. The first mention of the village in archival documents dates back to the 16th century. During the Russian-Swedish war of the 16th-17th centuries, Syargilakhta, like many other villages of Olonets The region has been repeatedly raided.) Also at the moment there are camp sites for visiting tourists in the village. Fokensuari Island itself has an unusual landscape and shape, and in the middle there are huge stones ... Perhaps in the future, treasure hunters will be able to find the treasures of the Swedish knight, but for now, the main clue is the foundation of the old house.

WHAT IS A TREASURE
Treasure - wealth hidden in the ground or in the wall of the house. There are “clean”, i.e. uncursed Treasures that any person can take without harm to themselves. But most Treasures are "impure", cursed, guarded by evil spirits and available to those who know the special magical ways to find and obtain them.
Hiding wealth, its owner "makes a vow", i.e. utters a spell, where he determines the conditions under which it is possible to take possession of the Treasure, for example, to withstand a seven-day fast, make a sacrifice, etc. The treasure can be placed "on someone's head" (for example, on a goose, dog, bull). This means that only the one who kills this animal at the location of the Treasure can take the Treasure. The treasure can be cursed on the head of the father or mother of the one who tries to take the treasure; on 40 human heads, and then 40 people who tried to take possession of the Treasure should die, and only the forty-first will be able to pick it up.
According to beliefs, there are special demons guarding the Treasure: the Russians have a treasurer, kopsha, treasure demons, whom demons choose from their midst for Ivan Kupala, Belarusians have a treasurer, a demon dressed in boots with golden horseshoes, a golden belt and a hat, eating only with bread picked up on the street, among Ukrainians and Poles - treasury, among Bulgarians - stopin (owner). Often the treasures are guarded by devils, damned people, among the Western Slavs - dwarfs, among the Bulgarians and Luzhans - snakes. Keepers of Treasures are legendary robbers, atamans and kings.

The places where treasures are hidden are forests, fields, caves, mountains, dungeons of old castles. The treasure was often buried under a stone, tree roots. The treasure can be hidden in the yard and even within the house, for example, in the wall, in the cellar, under the stove. According to beliefs, treasures buried in the ground rise to the surface, open or glow from the ground, then they can be seen and taken away. This happens on the eve of Ivan Kupala, on Palm Sunday, at midnight before big holidays: before Christmas, New Year, Annunciation, St. George's Day, Easter.
The location of the Treasure can be determined by some signs: when the treasures rise to the surface of the earth, fire, reflections of light, pale lights are visible at this place. The treasure may appear in the form of an old man, a beautiful girl, any animal, a white bird, as well as an object, such as a ball.

To master the Treasure, you need to know the conditions under which it is buried. To do this, you need to eavesdrop on the spell pronounced when hiding the Treasure. At this moment, you can change the condition of the conspiracy by uttering another, easier one yourself, because. the last spell is effective. For example, a tramp, having overheard the owner of the Treasure, who conjured him “for three valiant heads”, changed the spell, saying “for three stakes of aspen”, and when the owner left, cut down three aspen stakes and took the Treasure.
Anyone who tries to take the Treasure, not knowing magical tricks, exposes himself and his loved ones to danger: serious illness and even death. The demons guarding the Treasure frighten, drive away and kill an ignorant person. The treasure is “not given” to him, but only goes deeper into the ground or turns from gold into shards. If the Treasure is shown in the form of an animal, bird or object, you need to hit it backhand and say: “Amen, amen, crumble!” Or throw some clothes on him.

According to Czech beliefs, whoever sees a pale light at the location of the Treasure should put a rosary, a white rag or a piece of bread into it, then the Treasure will come to the surface. The Bulgarians believe that the place where the Treasure is located should be sprinkled with ashes from the badnyak. The next day, traces will be visible on the ashes, by which they determine what kind of sacrifice to bring to the Treasure. If traces of an animal or a bird are visible, they slaughter a lamb, a ram or a rooster; if there are traces of a person, it is believed that the demon - the "owner" of the Treasure is waiting for a human sacrifice. Before digging up the Treasure, this place needs to be “aminated”, and during the extraction of the Treasure, you need to remain silent, no matter what you dream about. The fern flower and plakun-grass are considered to be a universal means for finding and mastering the Treasure. The fern shows the place where the Treasure is buried, and the plakun-grass drives away the evil spirits guarding it.
Despite the precautions taken, the person who finds the Treasure is often unhappy, seriously ill and dies prematurely or goes crazy, because this money is unhappy and cursed by the devil. The Eastern Slavs and Bulgarians believed that often the curse falls on the family of the treasure hunter and his descendants.

house corners
The inviolability of the border of the house was also fixed at the beginning of construction: willow branches consecrated on Palm Sunday, the remains of consecrated Easter food, etc. were buried under the corners of the foundation. By placing coins or bread under the corners of the house, they hoped that good, wealth and etc...
The CORNER of the house as a boundary space was traditionally considered a habitat for evil spirits and the spirits of the dead (cf. the Russian idea of a brownie living in the CORNER, South Slavic beliefs about a house snake living under the CORNER of the house, etc.) and therefore was the object of many cleansing, apotropaic and propitiatory rituals....

Well
A well is an object and a locus, conceived as a boundary space, as a channel of communication with the other world. Visiting the Well and drawing water was surrounded by numerous prohibitions that correlated with daily and calendar time and concerned specific individuals. It was believed, for example, that one should not drink water from the Well on St. George's Day, when the earth "opens" and releases poison ...

The well was used as a communication channel with the “other world”. The Bulgarians leaned over the Well at dawn, expecting that at sunrise the silhouettes of dead relatives would appear on the water surface. Among Russians, the ban on pouring water from a bucket when drawing it from the Well was motivated by the fact that “from there, parents look at us” ....

Attic
Attic - the upper part of the dwelling, the space bounded by the roof and ceiling. The attic stood out with the appearance of the ceiling, which limited and somewhat narrowed the “own” space of the house. The attic is the periphery of the dwelling, in connection with which it receives negative values, acquires the semantics of "foreignness", semi-development. The attic was used to store items that needed to be temporarily, according to ritual instructions, removed from the house: for the period of Christmas time and after the end of spinning in the spring, a spinning wheel, a spindle were taken out to the Attic, a ready-made base prepared for weaving was hidden for the summer (Polesye), etc. . In some Russian regions, in the Attic, old people kept coffins prepared for themselves.

The attic was considered one of the habitats of the brownie and the spirit of the enricher. In the Attic, the hostesses left treats for them on major calendar holidays. On the eve of Lent, a piece of meat or a cup of milk was taken to the Attic. In Polissya, in the Attic, they carried a conciliatory sacrifice for an angry brownie: if the bread laid in the Attic disappeared in the morning, it was believed that the brownie forgave the owners and was no longer angry ...

Fern
Fern, Fire-flower - a plant that, according to folk beliefs, blooms once a year on one of the summer nights. The FERN flower was endowed with wonderful magical properties.

The flowering of the FERN most often occurs on the Kupala night (see Ivan Kupala), on one of the nights of the Assumption Lent, on the eve of Ilyin or Peter's Day, and also on the so-called sparrow night, when severe thunderstorms occur. A person who managed to get a bright red FERN flower that blooms only for a moment acquires magical knowledge and skills: he will be happy all his life, learn to understand the language of animals, birds and plants, and learn from the conversations of plants which plant helps against which disease; treasures and treasures hidden in the ground will be opened to him, he will acquire the ability to become invisible, bewitch the girl he likes, “turn away” a hail cloud from his field, evil spirits have no power over him; with the help of this flower, a person can get healing ant oil, which is knocked down by ants on the night of Ivan Kupala, etc.

According to Slovenian beliefs, if on a Kupala night you uproot Fern from the ground, then at the end of the root you will find a golden ring...

House bookmark
The laying of the house is the initial stage of the construction ceremony, designed to ensure the success of construction, as well as the well-being and prosperity of the owners of the future house.

When choosing a building material (usually wood), a number of prohibitions were observed related to the type of trees, their place of growth and the time of felling. The number of trees prohibited for building a house included the so-called sacred and cursed trees: aspen, spruce and pine, linden. The Slovaks avoided harvesting spruce and larch, because these trees, according to legend, "attracted" thunder and lightning.

An important point was the choice of a place for the future home. It was forbidden to build a dwelling in “holy” (churches, gardens and fields), dangerous (cemeteries, places of massacres), “unclean” (crossroads, bathhouse, mill, swamp, dump) places: this could lead to illness, death of the owners or others. misfortunes.

The choice of the place of construction was often carried out with the help of fortune-telling: millet or rye was sprinkled around the future building, four piles of grain, four pieces of bread, and vessels with water were left at the four corners of the chosen place. If in the morning (after three, nine days) everything remains untouched (especially if the bread is whole), then the place is well chosen, the house will stand for many years and there will be prosperity in it. It was considered a positive sign if in the morning there was dew under the left frying pan or water arrived in vessels with water, the wool in the pots became damp, or ants were found.

When choosing a place, the Russians baked bread, one of which was “assigned” to a new house. If the bread worked out, it was a good omen, but if the bread fell apart or did not rise, then "it will be bad."

During the laying of the house, particular importance was attached to the choice of time for the start of construction. Russians in Siberia began to put up a house during Lent (in early spring). The Southern Slavs tried to start work at a “good” hour: before sunrise or before noon, noting that “as the day grows and develops, so the house under construction should grow and develop.” In Polissya, on the other hand, they laid the foundation stone for a house after sunset, as they were afraid of the evil eye. Often the Bookmark at home was timed to coincide with the full moon or new moon. If you start Bookmarking the house at the loss of the month, then the house will collapse.

The foundation was started from the east side, often by the owner or the oldest man in the house, who then threw money to the craftsmen on the foundation stones, "so that they would not sway."

When the foundations of the future structure were in position, protective rites were performed or objects were buried in the foundation - apotropaea: consecrated herbs, grain, bread, water, oil, coins, incense, pieces of an Easter candle or Easter and sprigs of spruce - from "lightning", garlic, mustard seeds, mercury, glass, "for it does not rot or decay, and unclean spirits fear it"...

Bake
... Since communication with the outside world is carried out through the chimney, including the "other world", the FURNACE is comparable to a door and windows. The chimney is a specific exit from the house, intended mainly for supernatural beings and for contacts with them: a fiery serpent and the devil enter the house through it, and a witch, the soul of the deceased, a disease, a share, an appeal addressed to an unclean person fly out of it. strength, etc.

The FURNACE performs a symbolic function in the sense that food is cooked in it, i.e. a natural product is turned into a cultural object, a raw one is turned into boiled, baked or fried, and firewood, in turn, turns into ashes and smoke ascending to heaven.

Different symbolic meanings of the FURNACE were actualized depending on the ritual context. If in the wedding and native rites she symbolized the giving birth to the female womb, then in the funeral - the road to the afterlife or even the kingdom of death itself, sometimes differentiated into hell and paradise. If in rituals designed to introduce a newborn child or a purchased pet to the house, she denoted its focus, then in the bylichki about a fiery snake or a devil penetrating a house, a mortal danger for its inhabitants was associated with it.

In the ritual of baking a child, the FURNACE symbolizes both the grave, death, and the giving birth to the female womb, and putting the child into the FURNACE is intended to kill the disease and the sick child itself in order to revive a healthy child. Accordingly, the same actions performed during different ceremonies received different meanings: when they looked into the FURNACE, returning from the funeral, they thus wanted to get rid of the fear of the dead and longing for him; when the bride did the same when entering a new house, then by this she expressed the wish that her groom's parents die.

Pipe
Chimney - along with a window, a door, an underground floor, an attic is comprehended as an open border, an intermediary between this and the other world, a place associated with the world of the dead.

According to South Slavic beliefs, a vampire, a veshtitsa, a devil, the spirits of diseases, the spirits of fate crawl into the house through the Pipe. Eastern and Western Slavs believed that a devil in the guise of a deceased husband flies to widows through the Trumpet, a flying kite brings wealth; the Czechs believed that Panna Melusina was moaning in the Trumpet, brought there by a whirlwind. Through the Trumpet, the devils carry away the soul of the deceased sorcerer, the witch flies to the Sabbath ... The Eastern Slavs believed that there was a brownie place near the Trumpet, and in eastern Poland they believed that the enriching spirit was sitting there. So that the demons could not enter the house, the Serbs stuck hawthorn thorns into the Pipe, the Ukrainians sprinkled poppy seeds around it, and the Pipe itself was baptized for the night.

The pipe is the path along which the souls of the dead go to the afterlife, and the souls of newborn children are born. Belarusians believed that the soul of the deceased, whom relatives forgot to remember, bursts into the pipe with the wind and groans, asking for remembrance; according to Ukrainian ideas, there are the souls of stillborn children, and according to Serbian - the souls of ancestors, so on Christmas Eve the hostess threw the remnants of dinner into the Pipe to feed them. The Ukrainians believed that death, coming for a person, sits near the Pipe. In order not to be afraid of the deceased, when they came home after the funeral, they looked into the Pipe.

Monastic and church treasures
First of all, they are looked for in monastery wells or embedded church pillars. And, of course, not in the existing places of worship, but in those destroyed at one time by the Bolsheviks or during the last war. Moreover, in Russia, unfortunately, there are still plenty of such sad ruins.

Monastery wells attract the treasure hunter not with mythical treasures, but with concrete ones. Ancient coins from century to century were thrown into the wells by pilgrims, this is known. It is also known that the Bolsheviks extracted 25-30 poods of silver and copper coins from some monasteries near Moscow wells.

Finding treasures in church pillars is not an easy task, but the finds here are quite serious. The fact is that in the old days, during the laying of a particular church, it was customary to present expensive gifts. The donors, as a rule, were very high-ranking persons up to the reigning persons. According to church rules, gifts in the presence of the donor were placed in a special niche of the mortgage pillar. And they got stuck. For example, it is known for certain that at the laying of the temple in the village of Nizino near St. Petersburg, Emperor Alexander III was personally present, who presented about three kilograms of gold and silver coins on a silver platter as a gift. In the early nineties, treasure hunters visited the temple, which was turned into a potato warehouse during the years of Soviet power. But... they didn't find anything. The upper niche of the mortgage pillar turned out to be empty, since the pillar itself was originally built with the expectation of another niche, located much lower than the level of the basement, in the altar part of the temple. At the moment, thank God, the Nizinsky temple has found its former purpose. And if no one has stolen the imperial gift during this time, it is still in the possession of the temple, which Igor Sidorov is absolutely sure of.

Everywhere in Altai, during the demolition of old houses, ritual coins are found, laid by builders either under the "cushions" of windows, but more often in the corners of log cabins - under the first crown, lying on larch \"chairs\" or on stone stools.

The earth, the grave becomes the new home of the deceased, and they equip it like a house. As when building a new dwelling, coins are placed under the corners of the house as a payment for a place to the earth or to unnamed inhabitants of the other world, at a funeral it is customary to throw money along with the earth into the grave. This is explained in the same way: you need to recoup the land. Who? Yes, those who settled there earlier, those who accept a new deceased into their community. However, sometimes the land itself acts as the recipient of the ransom: “When they bury a grave, they shove copper money there - they paid for the grave. They will lower the coffin, there their handkerchief with which she cried, the tears have somehow gone away, and pay for the grave. [Who?] Near the ground” (KA). They buy a plot of land for their relative, so that he would not be a stranger there. Then he will live well there (it is necessary to recoup the house). A foreign land becomes one's own, more precisely, a family land, belonging to a family, clan.

When they put the two lower logs - the first two crowns so that where the log lay with a butt, they piled another top there, the owner came, brought (vodka, drank "stowing". Under the front, holy angle, at the request of the owners, they buried a coin on wealth, carpenters of themselves - a piece of incense for the saint.

Until recently, similar rituals were preserved on the territory of the Novosibirsk region. For example, in the village of Suzun and in the village of Starodubrovino, Moshkovsky district, a coin was laid under the crown, on the foundation, in the four corners of the future hut “to make money”. In the villages of Mamonovo and Starobibeyevo of the Bolotinsky district, in addition to laying coins under the right side of the house, where its front corner will be, a treasure was buried for a certain period, which at the appointed time "should come out by itself."

The discovery of a coin on the right side of the strip foundation of the southwestern tower of the Umrevinsky prison is clearly not accidental, since it was here that the front corner of the structure was located. The location of the coin on the foundation pile of the southwestern tower of the Umrevinsky prison with the coat of arms of the Russian Empire up was also symbolic. It is known that during this period of Russian history, careless attitude to state symbols was punished quite severely. Dropping a coin with the coat of arms down was considered not just a bad omen (by analogy with the game “heads and tails”), but could also be interpreted as an insult to the symbols of royal power.

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SOURCE OF INFORMATION AND PHOTO:
Team Nomads
NEWSPAPER "AiF-Karelia"
A.I. Leontiev, M.V. Leontiev. "Campaigns of the Normans in Rus'", M .: "Veche", 2009
http://obzor-novostei.ru/
K. Tiander, SCANDINAVIAN TRIPS TO THE WHITE SEA, St. Petersburg 1906:
http://karelov-mir.rf/
site "Journey through Karelia"

On the way from Petrozavodsk to the west, to the Finnish border, the navigator led us to a strange road.
The road was asphalt at first, and then suddenly turned into dirt and stretched through the forests.
The forest nature around is beautiful, wild and pristine. Those are cruel places...

1. It seemed that the road brought us here on purpose.
The Finnish names of settlements reminded us of history: Hautavaara, Potkuselga, Kokonniemi... this big piece of Karelia used to be Finland.
After the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. this territory passed to the Soviet Union, and the names of settlements have not been renamed since then

2. Fierce battles took place in the forests of Karelia in those years, traces of defensive structures have remained there until now

3. These places also got it during the Great Patriotic War.
Everywhere there are trench lines littered with branches and rotten dugouts.

4. And somewhere after the city of Suoyarvi, along the road, military burials begin to meet. I marked on the map with a triangle approximately where they start

5. There are a lot of soldiers' graves there

6. There are signs along the road, and the graves themselves are hidden in the forest...

7. ... and to get to them you need to go along the forest paths

8. More often these are just mass graves of soldiers without names.

9. The graves are well-groomed, although there are no settlements in the vicinity

10.

11. And around just wild Karelian forests

12. Commemorative memorial dedicated to the soldiers of the rifle division who fell in the Great Patriotic War

13.

14. Nameless soldiers' graves

15.

16. Finnish military graves are also found in those places

17. Finnish memorial

18.

19. He is also looked after, the Finns visit, the border is very close there

The land of those places is saturated with the blood of soldiers, and not only of our country...
Eternal memory to them...

20. We turned to a gas station in the city of Pitkyaranta, and met an interesting pedestal with a rare tank of the 30s

21. This is a light tank T-26

22. At the end of the road, closer to the city of Pitkyaranta, the road deteriorated so much that we almost floated on gray mud. Kamaz trucks, loaded with some kind of stone chips or sand, rushed towards us, and splashed mud on the sides. It turned out that either a cement or a crushed stone plant is located there. Photographed on the go, sorry for the quality

23. Huge piles of stones and sand, and trucks are almost in a row

24. As a result of such "swimming" in the cement road slurry, our "tank" turned out to be pretty splattered with mud

25. Gray stone slurry stuck tightly around the entire bottom

Treasure hunting is becoming more and more popular every year among the inhabitants of Karelia. It is difficult to find a settlement on the outskirts of which gloomy people with so-called metal detectors would not walk in the spring. Some even compare this type of recreation with fishing or hunting. We learned how to properly search for the treasures of Karelia.

The meanings of such concepts as a treasure or a treasure have changed a lot, and instead of the cultural history and mystery hidden behind these words, they are now seen as rare finds from coins, jewelry, and household utensils. The heroes of the legends spent their whole lives looking for treasures and never found them, and the stories about this were passed down from generation to generation.

Modern treasure hunters bear little resemblance to their predecessors, as smartness and courage have been replaced by GPS navigators, search magnets and four-wheel drive vehicles.

People involved in black excavations make me feel disgusted. I don't understand why they do it. If you are a collector, you can buy all the same for quite modest money. If you like the process, why not just sign up for an expedition and work under the guidance of experts. Many are justified by some dubious romance emanating from this occupation, but personally I can’t see anything but greed in this.
Ivan, student of the history department of PetrSU.

Archaeologists who dig illegally now face up to six years in prison. In the Russian Federation came into force a law on increased liability for illegal archaeological work.

Video - ban on the use of metal detectors

Despite the inattention of modern people to the past of the land on which they live, many legends about real treasures that have not been found have been preserved in the cultural memory.

So, for example, there is a legend that in the middle of the Karelian lake Syamozero there is an island on which an old rich Swedish knight lived during the Russo-Swedish War. The foundation of his house has been preserved to our times, and anyone can see it. The knight buried his treasures on the island before his death. According to the legend, only those who ride a horse on the first ice, which froze over in just one night, will be able to find them. All residents of the village of Syargilakhta, which is located near the lake, know this legend and still tell it.

In the folk legends of the Olonets Province, Lithuanian raids on this region are remarkable. In some counties, there are places that bear the names obtained during these raids. The island bears a similar name, on Lake Onega, five versts from the village of Derevyannaya: Devichy-Ostrov. Tradition says that he received this name during the Lithuanian raids. A crowd of enemies, having robbed the neighboring villages and seized one girl, tied her in a boat and went to celebrate on the aforementioned island. While the Lithuanians were indulging in a feast, their captive, rocking the boat, forced it to sail away from the island. The Lithuanians did not pay attention to this, believing that it was impossible for their prey to escape; meanwhile, the boat was brought to the shore and the girl escaped. Tradition does not say what happened afterwards with the noisy crowd; adds only that supposedly there are treasures on the island that were once buried by the Lithuanians.
Ethnographic materials//Olonets Provincial Gazette. 1883

In the village of Riekkala, Kurkijoki volost, it was said that decades ago a stranger came to them from the Russian side. He asked about stones of unusual shape, such as Allaskivi (Trough-stone), Satulakivi (Saddle-stone), as well as a stone in the Rahola clearing. They are all flat and very conspicuous.

Everyone in the village was sure that the wanderer had come to look for treasures. It is said about the Saddle-stone in another legend. Next to it, allegedly, the Swedes lowered treasures to the bottom, which they took away from the monastery after it was plundered. This monastery was located nearby, on the island of Kannansaari in Lake Ladoga. It is easy to believe in such legends - valuable finds in those places are not uncommon. So, in the autumn of 1866, a resident of the village of Kuppala discovered several hundred silver coins under a stone. These were mainly coins of German principalities, but there were also coins from England and even from Central Asia.

Usually, at first, a little blue light will appear on the stones in the distance. You get closer, it turns, for the most part, into a small snake that needs to be touched with something. If you touch it, it will crumble into rubles, or even gold pieces, - you know, collect it. One girl saw a light, she saw a snake in the stones, but she just couldn’t use it: she got scared and ran away. Meanwhile, if she had hit the snake with something, the treasure would have gone to her.

Ethnographic materials. From the life and beliefs of the Korels of the Olonets province//Olonets provincial sheets. 1892

Treasure hunting is becoming more and more popular every year among the inhabitants of Karelia. It is difficult to find a settlement on the outskirts of which gloomy people with so-called metal detectors would not walk in the spring. Some even compare this type of recreation with fishing or hunting. SmartNews learned how to properly search for the treasures of Karelia.

Modern treasure hunters bear little resemblance to their predecessors, as smartness and courage have been replaced by GPS navigators, search magnets and four-wheel drive vehicles.

Expert opinion

“A found item without context, without the layer in which it was found, is just rubbish. Usually the finds are all typical and are known in hundreds or thousands of pieces. For some reason, everyone thinks that archaeologists are working to obtain precious metals. But in fact, it is the complex of things that is important, the reconstruction is important. The so-called black diggers kill the cultural layer, as they deprive it of those things that could date this layer. Thus, they deprive us of the opportunity to answer one of the key questions that we ask the monument: “When?” Also, black diggers, pulling a thing out of the ground, make holes and at the same time destroy the picture of layers, after which it is almost impossible to answer the second question: “Who?”

Black diggers have different reasons for doing this. Some dig for resale, others for stacking in a sideboard or on a shelf in the garage. I saw bags of things of different times, collected from the fields, which are simply lying around as unnecessary in the sheds. After all, the so-called treasures in the Middle Ages were rarely small silver, but more often just iron, copper, since the people were poor.

People involved in black excavations make me feel disgusted. I don't understand why they do it. If you are a collector, you can buy all the same for quite modest money. If you like the process, why not just sign up for an expedition and work under the guidance of experts. Many are justified by some dubious romance emanating from this occupation, but personally I can’t see anything but greed in this.

Archaeologists who dig illegally now face up to six years in prison. In the Russian Federation came into force a law on increased liability for illegal archaeological work.

Video

The plot of the new law on increased liability for illegal archaeological work

Video: rianovosti

Despite the inattention of modern people to the past of the land on which they live, many legends about real treasures that have not been found have been preserved in the cultural memory.

In the folk legends of the Olonets Province, Lithuanian raids on this region are remarkable. In some counties, there are places that bear the names obtained during these raids. The island bears a similar name, on Lake Onega, five versts from the village of Derevyannaya: Devichy-Ostrov. Tradition says that he received this name during the Lithuanian raids. A crowd of enemies, having robbed the neighboring villages and seized one girl, tied her in a boat and went to celebrate on the aforementioned island. While the Lithuanians were indulging in a feast, their captive, rocking the boat, forced it to sail away from the island. The Lithuanians did not pay attention to this, believing that it was impossible for their prey to escape; meanwhile, the boat was brought to the shore and the girl escaped. Tradition does not say what happened afterwards with the noisy crowd; adds only that supposedly there are treasures on the island that were once buried by the Lithuanians.

Stories about treasures and gold are the most important attribute of folklore monuments. This is not only a rich source of data for historians, folklorists and anthropologists, but also a key element in the education of the area of \u200b\u200bthe inhabitants within which it exists. Information about treasures hidden nearby helps a person mentally ennoble the cultural space around him and at the same time inspires respect for the age and memory of this space.

Usually, at first, a little blue light will appear on the stones in the distance. You get closer, it turns, for the most part, into a small snake that needs to be touched with something. If you touch it, it will crumble into rubles, or even gold coins, - know, collect it. One girl saw a light, she saw a snake in the stones, but she just couldn’t use it: she got scared and ran away. Meanwhile, if she had hit the snake with something, the treasure would have gone to her.

Expert opinion

Head of the Department of Archeology, National Museum of the Republic of Karelia, SmartNews

- A huge number of ordinary people participate in archaeological expeditions throughout the country, but they do it officially, under the guidance of specialists. There are few excavations in Karelia now, and mostly history students and volunteers who have been proven over the years are involved in them. According to the legislation, all finds are transferred to the National Museum of Karelia.

The topic of treasures is of interest to many. And many people devote their leisure time to the search for treasures. Vacations, weekends are spent on obtaining maps, equipment, ammunition and everything else that can be useful in the campaign for the blue bird. I do not think that treasure hunters hope to get rich and acquire countless treasures in one moment. For one trip to Tmutarakan or somewhere else. Rather, they are driven by human curiosity, excitement, a craving for adventure. In any case, people are enthusiastic, erudite and interesting. The times of discovery of rather serious treasures are a thing of the past. There are very, very few chances. And even modern technology, sometimes, except for the pennies of the Soviet era, is unable to detect anything. But this does not stop real treasure hunters. Somewhere, under the old legend, there is still an untouched bundle with the cherished "Catherine", and even with gold chervonets. Who knows... There is not so much information about the treasures in the territory of Karelia. And this is due not so much to its absence, as such, but to a small number of treasures themselves. The region is taiga, sparsely populated, with complex relief. There were no major trade routes here. There are no trading cities and fortresses. Yes, and wars were fought more in the southern regions. Who is interested in fighting waist-deep in a swamp. So Karelia remained aloof from wholesale digging. But in any case, there are treasures. And the probability of finding a pod with coins of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is quite real. Personally, I have seen in Zaonezhie how in the evenings, after fishing, the men diligently rubbed 10 kopeck coins of 1922-24 to a shine. They broke the house, found a pot in the attic. Only about 3 kg of change. It was in 1998, on Kolgostrov. So the treasures are still waiting for their owners. The information below was collected from the Internet. As they say, for what I bought, for that, I sold.
MONEY OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE
Natalia VITIVA

30 coin treasures were found in Karelia

“Once in a lifetime, fortune knocks on the door of every person, but at this time a person often sits in the nearest pub and does not hear any knock,” said Mark Twain. At least 30 residents of Karelia ended up at home when Mrs. Luck decided to look at them - 30 treasures of the 10th-early 19th centuries were found in the republic at different times.
Cauldron with money

The provincial local history literature of the last century reported such finds: in Povenets district, in the "village of Kachchieva, a quarter of a mile from the church, in a field, small oblong silver coins are still found ... In the village of Mannieva, one verst from the church , they also find money in the ground", "between the villages of Petelnavolok and Maselga, on the stubble, every spring brings small silver oblong coins with water to the road ...", in the Vytegorsk district "one peasant of the village of Lema plow pulled a boiler out of the ground from the ground with money."

I did not specifically deal with the topic of treasures, - says Andrey Spiridonov, a Petrozavodsk archaeologist, - and, unfortunately, I have never found treasures myself. But he entered random information about them into a card file. By 1995, I already had information about 30 fairly well-documented treasures from the 10th-early 19th centuries. Then I made a review of these findings.

It turns out that all the Karelian "treasures" were found by accident. There were no mysterious maps indicating the places where the money was buried. And the treasures more often became the savings of our wealthy ancestors, who hid their "wealth" at the time of danger. Scandinavians often fertilized the soil with treasures. The Vikings firmly believed that everything they buried in the ground during their lifetime would be with them in the other world. And they buried it. Mostly coins. Jewelry, apparently, men in those days preferred to give to women, and not to the earth.
Four kilograms of silver

The very place of discovery of these treasures on the natural waterway between the Ladoga and Onega lakes indicates the connection of treasures with the fur trade and trade in the Onega region, - said Andrei Mikhailovich. - Several rich graves of merchants and warriors were studied in the burial mounds of the 10th-11th centuries in the same section of the Svir River. The size of some of the Svir treasures testifies to the wide scope of trade with Prionezhye. For example, a pot with 3,280 Arabic, Western and Northern European coins, dug out of the ground in Lodeynoye Pole in 1878, weighed four and a half kilograms. And the Lodeynopol treasure of almost three thousand and several fragments of silver items, found in 1949 during earthworks, weighed three and a half kilograms. At prices common to the Baltic countries of the 11th century, for a mark of silver (about 200 grams) one could buy a slave or two cows, for one and a half marks - a slave, a good horse or ten pigs.

In fact, most of what was mined went from hand to hand. The people managed to pull even from under the nose of the governor. So, in Petrozavodsk in 1849, "near the confluence of the Neglinka River into Onega Lake, when clearing a place for the construction of buildings belonging to the garrison battalion," a treasure trove of silver coins was found. Of it, only less than 60 pieces came to the then head of the province Pisarev. The rest of the money floated away in an unknown direction. One of the coins was sent by the head of the Olonets mining works, Butenev, to the Imperial Archaeological Society. It turned out to be a dirham minted in Bukhara around 946. So the treasure, apparently, was very valuable. Although none of the experts has yet estimated the market value of the Karelian treasures.

But the inhabitants of the republic were not always so greedy. The latest find is considered to be a treasure from Sandal Island. In 1972, 71 silver coins were collected on an unnamed island near the canal between lakes Nigozero and Sandal. They were wrapped in something and placed in a hole between small boulders. The fishermen who found the treasure hidden around the 1015th century did not covet the Western European denarii of the X-XI centuries, the Arab dirhams of the VIII-X centuries. They gave everything to the Karelian Museum of Local Lore and did not demand any remuneration.

I think that many more treasures will be found in Karelia, - Andrey Spiridonov says, - which will tell a lot of new things about the history of our region. But this will happen only if the coins are studied by numismatists. And if the new finds do not go hand in hand, but will be transferred to museums.

The rite of sacrifice, in addition, had the purpose of reproduction and multiplication of animals, i.e. creating future abundance. Along with wild animals, domestic animals were also donated, as well as bread, vodka, shreds of cloth, and bullets. In addition to the mentioned 20 sacrificial treasures of silver objects, 11 sacrificial Lapp sites of the 10th-14th centuries are known. (Swedish Lapland - 9, Norway - 1, Finland - 1), where jewelry items, coins with holes and arrowheads of Western European and Russian origin, local products were found.

GIRL ISLAND.
In the folk legends of the Olonets Province, Lithuanian raids on this region are remarkable. In some counties, there are places that bear the names obtained during these raids.
We once mentioned Devichya Gora, in the Pudozh Uyezd, which has been called so since the time when a peasant girl, pursued by the lords (as Lithuania is called here), threw herself into the Vodla River from the steep bank of the Devichya Gora.
The island bears a similar name, on Lake Onega, five versts from the village of Derevyannaya: Devichy-Ostrov. Tradition says that he received this name during the Lithuanian raids. A crowd of enemies, having robbed the neighboring villages and seized one girl, tied her in a boat and went to celebrate on the aforementioned island. While the Lithuanians were indulging in a feast, their captive, rocking the boat, forced it to sail away from the island. The Lithuanians did not pay attention to this, believing that it was impossible for their prey to escape; Meanwhile, the boat was brought to the shore and the girl escaped.
Tradition does not say what happened afterwards to the noisy crowd; adds only that supposedly on the island there are treasures buried once by the Lithuanians.

Olonets provincial bulletin. 1883

Treasure 2-3 June 2008 on the Karelian Isthmus.
For the weekend I went fishing with my wife, child and friends, took fishing rods, spinning rods, a net, and other fishing personal belongings. The trunk of the Patrol Nissan was crammed to the ceiling. I was still thinking whether to take a metal detector or not ...
But still I decided to take it, I think - if there is no bite, I look like with the device. I took my Garik 2500 and my wife's device - ICQ 250.
We arrived at the place at night. Local guys (our friends) were waiting for us. He left his wife and child for the night in the village, while they themselves went to hunt the bream. 5 km rowing and we are there... That night we caught bream about 60 - 70 kg. While sailing on the boat, I talked about my hobby and about the findings. One of the locals (Edik) caught fire on this topic and began to talk about various interesting, in his opinion, places ... I take such stories calmly, but still I listened. In general, we decided to check a couple of farms the next day.
We returned at 6 o'clock in the morning, I did not want to sleep, and I decided to fish with a bait. Fishing with nets, although it gives a lot of fish, is not interesting. I fished until 12 o'clock, then the bite subsided, and I went to the base, to sleep a little. At 16 o'clock I woke up, had a bite to eat and went for Edik to show him the places he was talking about. After a short conversation, we went to the cherished place.
Given the poverty of the Karelian Isthmus for finds, I did not expect anything supernatural from this trip. We stopped at one farm, walked around, waved clubs, found a couple of coins of advice and a bunch of vodka caps. We went to another farm, then to a third, fortunately they were all nearby ... the statistics of the finds were not encouraging. Time for the night and we decided to return to the village.
Moreover, again at night it was planned to go for bream. On the way back, Edik showed a couple more farms and said that next to the base where we stopped, there are foundations in one of the clearings. We brought him to the village, and we ourselves went towards the base. There were still a few hours left before the trip for bream and we decided to walk around with the instruments in the very place near the base ...
The car was left in the middle of the clearing, and they went to wave the instruments. Corks were all littered with. In less than an hour, I stuffed a full pocket with them. I was about to turn off the device, and headed towards the car, but then I dug out the first coin ... 3 kopecks copper Russia, then 1/2 kopeck, then a kopeck, then again three kopecks, and another and another, and another. And all this is literally 20-30 cm from each other ... Thus, in an hour of detecting on an area of 10-12 m2, I filled about 50 coins, Andrey and Oleg continued to collect corks ... Envying me, I hope, with white envy .
When the signals stopped, I decided that it was loose, a wallet, but just in case, I called the guys and we began to remove the turf from this place. The earth pleased with its friability. After removing the sod, we began to go deeper ... And here it is happiness! Coins began to pour right from the shovel! The device was thrown aside and we began to select coins with our hands. Each shovel of earth brought 5-10 coins!!!
And then I struck a shovel on something hard.
I threw away the shovel and began to rake the earth with my hands. And here it is, done! A broken pitcher appeared from the ground! The upper part of the jug was split into fragments and had a sufficient spread ... Apparently, it was once plowed up. And in the lower part lay a decent handful of copper Russia. The white nights helped, but it was still hard to see, we turned on the lamp, a fishing rod also came in handy, which served as a bracket for hanging the lamp over the excavation site, and light a fire, especially since it was quite cool. We got the rest of the copper with the help of a device and a green "sieve" that Skeet gave me, it had been in the car for a long time, and I did not even think that it would come in handy. There was such excitement that there was no time to take pictures, although I did take a few pictures during the dig and even filmed the process of sifting coins ... And only the next day we posed enough with devices and a jar full of coins.
Edik went fishing without us that night...
and we had our own, no less exciting and productive fishing!

A living legend of a Swedish knight.
Treasure hunters of Karelia In one of the picturesque places of Karelia on the lake "Syamozero" about 7 m. The coastline is indented by bays and capes. The shores are mostly low, monotonous.) there is an island “Fokensuari” (The largest island on the lake). According to ancient legend, an old, rich, Swedish knight lived on this island. Swedish war) Before his death, he buried his treasures ... Until now, the foundation of the house in which he presumably lived has remained on the island. According to legend, the person who can ride a horse on the first ice, which froze over in just one night, will be able to find these treasures. No daredevils have yet been found... In the summer, many tourists and treasure hunters sailed by boat and tried to find the treasure, but to no avail!!! Any indigenous person living in the village of “Syargilakhta” can confirm this information.

(The Karelian village of Syargilakhta, located on the shores of Lake Syamozero, 90 km west of Petrozavodsk. The first mention of the village in archival documents dates back to the 16th century. During the Russian-Swedish war of the 16th-17th centuries, Syargilakhta, like many other villages of Olonets The region has been repeatedly raided.) Also at the moment there are camp sites for visiting tourists in the village. Fokensuari Island itself has an unusual landscape and shape, and in the middle there are huge stones ... Perhaps in the future, treasure hunters will be able to find the treasures of the Swedish knight, but for now, the main clue is the foundation of the old house.

THE MYSTERY OF "NIKOLA LAPOTNOY"

“I sent 973 wagons from Moscow with various goods to the Kaluga Gate to Mozhaisk. From Mozhaisk, I went along the Old Road to Smolensk, having reached the Medyn and Vyazma districts. Stopped at Kuniy Bor; the river flows from the night to the winter sunrise, and the name of that river is Marchevka, and then I ordered the Russian people on Kun'y Bor to make a stone dam on the dry land, I ordered to grease the dam with clay, and in it I put a slate board and it says where it is supposed to go from Moscow to Mozhaisk.

This is how the text of the storeroom record begins, made, according to legend, in the Time of Troubles by the Polish king Sigizmund (according to another version, the impostor Grishka Otrepiev). The original of this entry, made “on a copper board” in Latin and Polish, according to the old treasure hunters, was in Warsaw, and a list made secretly from it, translated into Russian, was widely distributed among Russian treasure hunters.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that the "treasures of the Polish king" dated to the Time of Troubles - a huge number of treasures were buried during the Time of Troubles, which is confirmed by numerous finds, and this fact rather speaks in favor of the reality of the "treasures of Sigismund". Who they really belonged to is another question.

The historical basis of the legends about the "treasures of Sigismund" is connected with the events of 1609-1612. In the summer of 1609, King Sigismund III (in Russia he was called Zhigimont, from which the folklore name Aglement came about), at the head of a 30,000-strong army, entered the Russian borders engulfed by the Time of Troubles in order to “calm down the rebellion, exterminate the shameless Pretender, overthrow the treacherous tyrant (that is, the Russian Tsar Vasily IV Shuisky), liberate the people, affirm the faith and the church. It was about the conquest of the Russian throne. Part of the Russian boyars came out in support of the claims of Sigismund, believing that this would help pacify the Troubles. “All Russia will meet the desired tsar with joy,” they wrote to Sigismund. - Cities and fortresses will open the gates; the patriarch and the clergy will bless him earnestly. Only let Sigismund not hesitate; Yes, it goes straight to Moscow. However, Smolensk stood in the way of the royal troops, at the walls of which Sigismund got stuck for a whole year and a half. Only a small detachment of hetman Zholkiewski, having separated from the main forces, moved to Moscow and defeated the army of Vasily Shuisky in the battle of Klushin. The turmoil flared up with renewed vigor. The Poles, with the consent of the Boyar Duma, entered Moscow, and the entire Mozhaisk road from Moscow to Smolensk was controlled by Polish garrisons. The short period of agreement between the invaders and the Boryas elite ended with the Moscow uprising in March 1611, which was brutally suppressed by the regiments, and Moscow itself was burned and plundered. The Poles, according to Karamzin, “robbed the royal treasury, took all the utensils of our ancient crowned bearers, their crowns, wands, vessels, rich clothes to send to Sigismund .. they ripped off the salaries from the icons, divided gold, silver, pearls, stones and precious fabrics” . These trophies, which included a significant part of the royal treasury, were sent to Smolensk to the king along the Mozhaisk road and, according to legend, some of these treasures were hidden along the road near the graveyard of Nikola Lapotny ...

According to one of the legends, the Nikolsky churchyard is called so because here the Polish soldiers, having finally broken their boots on Russian roads, changed their shoes into bast shoes.

Recording on the treasures of Sigismund was widespread among treasure hunters. She went from hand to hand in a variety of versions. The main signs remained unchanged: the center of the “treasure-bearing” area in all versions of the record is the graveyard of Nikola Lapotny (Nikola Lapotnik, Nikola Lapotnikov, etc.), near which, stopping in Kunye Bor, the Polish king allegedly buried his treasures: “There is a churchyard of Nikolai The Wonderworker, even called Nikola Lapotny, and from him there is also the churchyard of the Holy Martyr George, three miles away from one another. Near the graveyard of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker there is a river Khvorostyanka, and another Gremyachka. At the mouth of this graveyard rubs.

We, in turn, can organize a search tour in any of these directions. Estimated cost from 1200 rubles. day. The price will include equipment rental (camping, search equipment), transfer, meals, guide.

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