Treasure hunt along rivers and on public beaches

Almost all large settlements in Russia are located along the banks of rivers, lakes and seas. What if we consider that part of the land that is washed by water on the one hand, and adjoins the embankment on the other, like a placer of gold? I do not call for testing coastal deposits on the city beach (although this is exactly what the inhabitants of Yekaterinburg did in the last century, right there in the city, handing over the washed gold to the mountain police chief), but, armed with a search device, walk along the water itself - this can turn out to be a very profitable occupation. The embankment is a favorite place for walks of the townspeople, and therefore a place of minor losses. Values ​​are often thrown into the water to get rid of evidence, or in retaliation for someone. For example, such a case is described in the Bulletin of the Gold Industry for 1899:

“Recently, in one of the villages close to Irkutsk, some swindler, fearing prosecution for the gold he had stolen from the mines, threw it, in the amount of three pounds, from the bank into the Angara River.”

Many valuables were dropped into the water at piers, steamship gangways, when unloading ships, and were lost when unloading into warehouses. And the water itself, doing its daily work and carrying away light particles, “washes” the cultural layer of the coastal soil, thereby concentrating heavy objects in the places of erosion. In order for the search to be successful, two factors must be taken into account - firstly, to study the old plan of the city or village in order to draw up an estimated scheme of work, and secondly, to take into account the physical changes in the channel under the influence of natural forces or human engineering activities. Of course, the part of the coast where the erosion of the soil and the demolition of its light components is more promising than the places where siltation occurs. The main thing is to choose the site so that natural forces work in the right direction.

City beaches are a special area of ​​attention for a mini-treasure hunter, or rather, a place to search for lost valuables. The more people visit the beaches, the more jewelry is lost here - sand and small pebbles serve as excellent shelter from the eyes of absent-minded owners. In many countries of the world, where there are comfortable beaches and the gentle sun shines, the business of searching for lost jewelry with the help of metal detectors is flourishing. According to unverified data, a similar fishery exists on the Black Sea coast. It can be assumed that it brings considerable income. Such work does not require particularly sensitive instruments - 10-15 cm of detection depth is quite enough. Of course, there will be a lot of low-value items, especially, I think, the seeker will become annoyed by the abundance of coins and traffic jams. What to do, you have to endure - good, to drip shallowly.

It may turn out that not only a lost ring or watch will become the prey of a specialist in extracting beach treasures. Sea waves, as you know, near the coast have tremendous power. During a storm, boulders spin in waves like soccer balls. Approximately the same thing happens at shallow depths near the surf, but the greater the depth of the sea column, the less the effect of wave energy on the bottom.

Ships that died at different times on coastal underwater rocks and shallows sank to the bottom, where they were subjected to inexorable destruction under the pressure of waves and salt water. The contents of the holds and cabins sank to the seabed. What is the further path of items from ship holds? Much depends on the bottom topography and depth at the crash site: sometimes the wreckage is buried under a layer of sand, and sometimes moving towards the shore with a mass of boulders and pebbles. So, for example, during the transverse (with respect to the coastline) movement of sediments by sea waves on a flat bottom, sand is carried to great depths, and pebbles and boulders are thrown to the coast.

As an illustration, I will cite a case described by Professor V.P. Zenkovich.

In 1946, the professor was in Kamchatka, on the Pacific coast. The border guards showed him heavy marine binoculars, corroded by sea water and overgrown with shells. They found this binocular once, after a storm, on the shore, it was thrown by waves from a ship that sank at a depth of 40 meters. From this depth, various iron fragments were thrown ashore by the waves more than once, and a year later, binoculars ended up on the beach.

The following fact also speaks of bottom unrest of unusual strength. In the Sea of ​​Japan, south of

Vladivostok, an anchor weighing almost 300 kg was missed from one vessel. The following year, the anchor was thrown ashore.

Sea waves can serve one more service to the treasure hunter, namely: to act as a hydromonitor, eroding the cultural layer of the earth on the coast, where the coast is being actively destroyed.

After a storm, during which the erosion process intensifies many times, you can go with a metal detector along the erosion strip and search in the cultural layer enriched by the removal of light soils for antiquities, if any are implied in the search area due to the historical setting.

If you take a little interest in the geological history of the coast, then perhaps you will be able to find areas that are promising for the search for values. As you know, the soil sometimes rises, and sometimes, on the contrary, sinks and is absorbed by the waters of the seas. Sometimes the processes are very slow, sometimes faster, but there are also rapid changes in land level: catastrophic rises or subsidence of soil during an earthquake. Let's say that some coast, rich in historical monuments, is immersed in sea waters. There are many such plots of land - in particular, in the near abroad. Then, as a result of a sharp rise in land, a site - for example, an ancient settlement - lying above the water for centuries, again finds itself under the sun, providing those who wish the opportunity to search for ancient treasures in the soil eroded by the sea.

On the beach, if the water is warm, you can search for valuables without a device - visual observation in the surf. Try looking at land from the water. The justifications are simple: golden objects are static, and sand and pebbles, constantly moved back and forth by a breaking wave, now expose, then again fall asleep these objects. The same process occurs from the side of the coast. But the surf line is looked at mainly from land, and not from under the water. I had to talk with people who struggled with the Black Sea summer boredom in this way. Here's what they advised.

For this practice, you need a mask with a tube. Fins are not needed, the seeker swims very slowly along the surf and, as a specialist in such a fishery figuratively put it, “rubs the sand with his stomach”. The observation is carried out directly in front of you, because the golden barrel of the jewel flashes only for a moment in an endless crowd of grains of sand or small pebbles. It is most convenient to conduct a search when there is a weak wave at sea, because with large waves there is a problem with swimming, and during calm there is no necessary movement of bottom sands.

Looking for coins along the banks of rivers can be quite a profitable and exciting activity. With the right organization of the search process, you can find very valuable copies and real rarities.

Many treasure hunters know that since ancient times people settled near rivers. And it didn't happen by accident. The presence of a source of fresh water in the vicinity was of great importance, since in the old days on the territory of the first settlements there was neither a pipeline nor a tap with cold and hot water. They swam in the rivers, took water for cooking, watering the garden, watered livestock and washed. In addition, the coast of the rivers was the venue for various religious ceremonies and folk festivals. Often, in a drunken state while swimming, people lost coins, chains, crosses, rings and other valuable things, which are now objects of interest for archaeologists and historians.

In winter, a wide variety of goods were transported along the river on sleighs to different parts of the country for their exchange or sale in settlements that were located on the coast or in large cities located in close proximity to the reservoir.

Fair trades were held near the rivers and, of course, in these places, money constantly went from hand to hand in the form of coins that were accidentally dropped from frozen fingers, they could accidentally fall out of the pocket of outerwear and get lost in another way. As a result, the coins fell into snowdrifts or ended up on ice, and after the snow melted, they fell to the bottom of the river. This often happened in shallow water.

The most optimal places to search for coins along the banks of rivers are:

- the bottom of a reservoir or shallow water;

- trails that go from the bank to the river;

- the confluence of the rivers, special attention should be paid to the study of the hill or ditch in this place;

- gentle slope on the shore;

- sand, which from time to time is washed from the bottom of the river;

- the high bank of the reservoir.

In these places you can often find old coins and other historical values.

To search for coins in shallow areas of the river, it is best to buy a metal detector equipped with a sealed coil. It is made in order to make it convenient to look for metal in the water, to explore the shallows. This device is absolutely safe to use.

If during the search you come across fishermen sitting on the shore, then we do not recommend telling them about the search for the treasure. Better say that you lost an expensive ring last year, a family heirloom. Among the lovers of fishing there are different people who do not need to be devoted to all the details of your "operation".

As a rule, the soil near the river consists of sand or clay, and it is in such soil that coins are best preserved.

To search for treasure at the bottom of a reservoir, you will need not only a sealed coil, it is best in this case to use a special magnet for searching. It can be bought in the distribution network, but it is quite inexpensive, in addition, its payback is extremely high. Even if you do not find coins, you will surely find scrap metal, which you can later turn in. Particularly successful treasure hunters with the help of such a magnet find silver and gold royal coins at the bottom of the reservoir, so “the game is worth the candle”, and even more so a useful magnet. By the way, it should be noted that the search for precious items on the banks of Russian water bodies is still officially permitted by law, unlike detecting in fields, forests, etc.

Sometimes valuable coins can be found near old watermills. But, in this case, the search will be somewhat difficult, since these structures were built in the narrow places of the river with a fast current. Treasure hunters are advised to explore not the bottom of the river in these places, but the place where the owner of the mill allegedly made his calculations with clients.

Maybe the little story told to me was invented by the former residents of the village I want to tell about, but they had no need for this. This story is connected with a village called Korostelevo in the Irbeysky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the events that took place in the village during the formation of Soviet power in Siberia. Yes, yes, respected search engines of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, it is the village of Korostelevo where the treasure hunters, in their opinion, checked every centimeter and are sure that they found everything they could. A little history about this settlement was formed in the third quarter of the eighteenth century by the townspeople of the city of Krasnoyarsk, the name was received from the surname of the first inhabitants of the village, in support of this: according to the results of the revision of 1816, 180 people with the surname Korostelev lived in the village.

The only village in the region that had to change its location due to the fact that the course of the Kan River changed its course, and the village ended up on an island. (doc. ed.) The river changed its course in the 1930s. I think that many readers are already interested in this mysterious place, but a little patience and I will tell the secret that I have become aware of.

In 2011, in the winter, I went to the hospital for inpatient treatment in the ward, to my regret, my peers were not there, and there were two pensioners, one who looked like 70 years old, the other 65 years old, both residents of our village, who all day, as they should be, scolded the authorities for the fact that they live badly, I dragged a bunch of books and slowly enlightened, although I read these books in the second round.

The next day, the pensioners ran out of words and topics for dialogue, and one of them, who was older, started a conversation with me. How does this usually happen for how many years? The name of? Where do you work, etc., in general, we started to get to know each other, he introduced himself that, given my age of 30 years, his name is grandfather Mitya for me and he is 85 years old (which you can’t say or even think about, a hefty man, a bull’s fist will knock down ) all his life he worked as a blacksmith and did not know illnesses, but then he grabbed his back. Accordingly, to keep the conversation going, I asked where he worked, and then grandfather Mitya began to tell that his surname Korostelev was from the village of Korostelev, which had not been there for a long time; It was formed in a new place by dismantling and rafting houses along the Kan River. In that old village lived all his relatives who were the founders of the village and their ancestors participated in the civil war. The topic of the civil war touched me, because on the eve I read a book called “Red Horse” about the civil war, and here it’s not a book but a living interlocutor, to maintain a conversation, I began to cite facts about the war from this book, and grandfather Mitya began the story that from his words father in the village of Korostelevo, fighting took place, both White and Red came.

As a child, his father showed him a place on the banks of the Kan River and asked him to remember the landmarks on the neighboring bank in the form of trees and said that in this place there are things that the communists should not know about. And he also told his son that before coming to the village of the Reds, all the relatives of the Korostelevs made tubes from birch bark, which were tarred with resin, weapons were placed in some, and in some various valuables belonging to the Korostelev family and the church, after which the tubes were buried in such a place, that the river does not wash it away, but rather pulls sand on it. Grandfather Mitya knows this place, but says that all this is of no use to him, since these weapons and valuables will not bring anything good to the Korostelev family.

After listening to the story of grandfather Mitya, I thought that my grandfather floods, how young people don’t write such things in books. And I became so curious. I ran home, opened the worldwide network, let's look about Korostelevo and about the civil war, I think my grandfather is lying, maybe there were no Whites and no Reds, but here is an abbreviated form of historical data: June 5, 1920, Ibeyskaya, volosts were declared under siege. On the same day, four hundred armed bayonets, over 100 sabers and almost two dozen machine guns were sent from Kansk and on August 17 from Krasnoyarsk to the southern and southwestern volosts of the Kansk district. At the beginning of October 1920, a rebel cavalry detachment of about 100 people appeared in the Aginsky volost, as well as small groups of rebels in the Aleksandrovskaya, Amonashenskaya, Irbeiskaya and Talskaya volosts.

The surviving investigative documents and the communist press state that their main contingent was made up of former Kolchak officers, combatants of Korostelevo, who were hiding from the persecution of the Cheka, and deserters of the Red Army, and officers S. Atavin and Sbiroevsky were called their leaders. To eliminate the rebels from October 9 to October 18, 1920, five detachments were sent to the southern part, numbering about 300 bayonets and sabers, with several machine guns. By order of the Kansk district military commissar dated October 17, 1920, the command of these detachments, as well as the food detachments located in the indicated volosts, the police and military registration and enlistment office employees, was entrusted to the head of the bureau of the Kansk district food committee V.F. Emelyashin was tasked with pushing the enemy to the right bank of the Kan River and, surrounding him there, eliminate him. Already in the village of Korostelevo, Irbey Volost, the number of rebels reached 200 people. All detachments subordinate to Emelyashin were consolidated into the southern group of Soviet troops. On November 12, its strength was 600 bayonets, 111 sabers and 5 machine guns. Moving north, parts of the southern group occupied the settlements of Irbey, Korostelevo, Khomutovo, located on the left bank of the Kan.

Abstracts of the scientific-practical conference Krasnoyarsk, October 20, 1995 Krasnoyarsk, 1995)

The next day after we met, grandfather Mitya was discharged from the hospital and I didn’t have to see him again, but, burning with curiosity from the story, I found his grandson, he also works in our village and asked if his grandfather told him about caches with weapons and valuables to which the grandson of grandfather Mitya replied that he was telling, but to all relatives, even to his own children and grandchildren, as they did not ask him, he refused to show this place, explaining that this would only ruin their life. Every year, all the relatives of the Korostelevs visit the graves of their relatives left in the place of the old village, and grandfather Mitya, walking along the shore, tells his relatives that no one has found a safe place.

No one seriously dealt with this issue, but look for yourself, according to the results of the revision of 1816, 180 people with the surname Korostelev lived in the village, then, a rebellion against Soviet power, about 200 rebels who were clearly in danger, and after the suppression of the rebellion, many were punished according to the laws of that time. I think there is reason to believe that these valuables lie in the sand, which does not let water through, and even in birch tubes, like new and waiting for their owner.

Good luck and luck to all!

It's no secret that the best places to search for antique items have long been explored. Whether it's a plowed tract, an abandoned village, a manor's estate or a landowner's house, treasure hunters have been everywhere, not to mention such chic places as inns and fairs.
Of course, it is far from a fact that all the finds have been found there, nevertheless, many would like to wander around with a metal detector in untouched places.

Here one of such interesting directions can be called a search on the reservoirs - next to them and right in the water.

Where to look

From time immemorial, rivers and lakes have been a source of water; without them, life was not conceivable before and now. From time immemorial, settlers built their houses next to water. If instead of a river there was a stream or a swamp, a pond was built nearby.

Life has always been in full swing around them: in summer and winter they swam, fished, washed clothes, carried water. And where there were people, there should be lost coins.

First of all, you need to check the bathing places, they usually did not change from year to year. Finding them in abandoned villages can be difficult. On ponds, they can be found by such features as a gentle, but not swampy shore without trees, a gradual lowering of the bottom topography and sand instead of silt. On rivers, this is much more difficult to do, for the simple reason that its channel gradually changes its path. Therefore, only old-timers can accurately point to the former beach. Some places may suggest ancient names - Stone bottom, Sergeevskaya bakalda, etc., as well as the expansion of rivers with a good bottom and shallow water.

Initially, we examine precisely these places, combing the entire coastline in detail for 5-6 m from the water's edge, paying special attention to areas where the water has come down.

After that, if the vegetation allows, you can also run along the reservoir, paying attention to various hillocks, growing thick trees and places once regularly visited by people - bridges for crossing and just bridges, paths from the bathhouse or house to the water.

Of particular interest in this regard are the drained ponds, the mass of water for many years reliably guarded everything that was hidden on the banks or simply lost.

What can be found here?

People at one time not only swam here, but also rested, respectively, there will be corks, foil, wrappers, etc. Of the valuable finds come across coins, crosses, chains, rings, icons, buttons, and other personal items.

Once, while examining a similar place right on the border with water, a medal for the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) was raised in excellent condition.

Most of the villages, as mentioned above, used to be located in the immediate vicinity of water bodies, their banks were a good place to hide a small egg-pod or even a whole treasure. So from time to time they come across there. This happens especially often near rivers, it is not uncommon when they are found there right with their eyes - the water washes away the shore and the coins spill out right into the river.

By the way, about the safety of objects, water itself is a solution of various salts, that's on their quantity and degree of concentration, as well as the nature of the soil, i.e. silt and depends on how the coin will be preserved. Treasure hunters say that sometimes you get a find as if from under a machine, but sometimes it’s just its remains.

In addition to the old beaches, other places that are no less interesting from the point of view of finding coins there require attention. These are crossings, bridges, entrances and approaches to places where ships and boats stopped, as well as just paths along the coast.

Input search is also real and feasible, but this is already quite a different level and knowledge. The fact is that in any reservoir a considerable layer of silt settles over the years, and if in the river it both washed and washed away, then in ponds or lakes its thickness can reach a meter. It is not easy to search in such conditions, to put it mildly, and they need completely different devices, such as Fisher CZ 21-10 or Minelab Excalibur or, in general, a search magnet.

So it remains for non-fans of underwater search to be content with the shallow water of sandy beaches and shoals. There you can walk around with the most common, as long as the coil is designed for immersion in the input.

Many now do not pass by modern beaches, they are rich not only in products made of precious metals, modern walkers, but also in the mass of all kinds of metal garbage.
Therefore, the search there is not easy, it requires a lot of patience and perseverance, but that's another story.

Many reservoirs of rivers and lakes hide a large number of treasures. Just imagine how many people during the entire period of money circulation betrayed their values ​​to water, some on purpose, and some quite by accident.
For treasure hunters, this is a special line of search that requires special knowledge and skill.

Now we will not touch on those treasure hunters who dive in special equipment with scuba gear in search of sunken ships.

Consider a search that does not require expensive diving equipment, but only requires great desire and diligence.

The ruins of ancient mills and old bridges are considered to be “fish” places for the presence of treasures. Almost any map of the early 20th century has marks of these places on it. After studying the maps, you should be well oriented in the area and start searching. Overgrown and abandoned mill foundations or old piles sticking out of the water can serve as landmarks, indicating the early presence of a bridge here.

Believe me, these places have seen a lot of people in their lifetime. A large number of coins were accidentally lost here, and such places served as an excellent guide for burying the treasure. The main task of a treasure hunter is to search for these coins, both in the water and on the shore.

To search, you need a fairly simple tool in the form of a specially made bucket with many holes in its bottom. This technology is quite straightforward and not everyone will like it. With this scoop, you will need to sort of sift the semi-liquid soil of the bottom. Then all more or less large items remain in the bucket.

When I first learned about this method, I decided to try it anyway, since I didn’t have a metal detector then. I made a scoop out of a metal mesh and went to fish. As a place to search, I chose the old bridge, which only the piles reminded of, on the river Barneva. Fortunately, the water at that time was warm, since I had to carry it for more than five hours, crossing the bottom of the river, and shoveling a whole heap of silt.

However, I did find a few. These were Soviet nickels of the thirties, a castle and a bell. Various garbage I will not mention. A few years later I returned to this place only with a metal detector, I had to wander along the coast for a long time before finding only five coins - one kopeck of Nicholas II and the rest of the Soviet period.

Apparently, this bridge was not the most crowded. In your search, it is important to determine how the riverbed has changed, and the surest option is to find the approximate parking of horses. According to the stories of knowledgeable people, such places are very rich in treasures. There are a lot of stories that during the period of dispossession, many millers hid their savings in bags made of leather and tied them to a heavy anvil and hid them under the mill in the water. Of course, some still did not have time to pick up their good. After all, it’s not hard to guess what kind of metal the millers hid in bags at the bottom of the river.

Springs can also be hiding places for treasures. But you can hide small treasures in them. But basically, the springs serve only as a guide and the treasure can be hidden at some distance. Therefore, shoveling the entire surrounding area is completely pointless. It will be much more useful to examine the spring. For these purposes, a rod made of iron is used, having a length of about one and a half meters. With such a probe, it is easy to pierce the entire area of ​​​​the spring in the hope of stumbling upon the treasure by feeling something solid. Always remember that patience and work will grind everything. Good luck with your catch.