The Treasure Train

The missing gold is a permanent mystery. That is what it has been during the last century, ever since its disappearance in August 1919. It could be in a monastery, hidden in caves, buried in a forest on the outskirts of a town, in the cellars of a bank or buried in containers in the bottom of a lake. Or all at once. In the fictional reconstruction of Red Snow, Gold Clouds, Marianna Baker explores the diverse theories on the gold`s fate. It should be noted that one of the antagonistic characters in the story, Zharkov, works for the Bank of Kazan, in which part of the official story occurs. Though also, the protagonist`s grandmother sought refuge with the gold in an Old Believer monestary in the Taiga, Siberia. And Zharkov`s wife died in Lake Baikal. Which clue will lead us to the gold?

Bank of Kazan

After the Admiral Kolchak was commissioned by the White Army to hide the gold, he engaged the services of the Czechoslovak Legion to help him in this mission. The particular objective of the legion was to protect the Trans Siberian Train from possible Bolshevik attacks on its journey between Kazan and Irkutsk. However, the Legionnaires` lack of interest of in a foreign war led to an attempt to get some of the treasure for themselves. Thus, in one of the stops at the Kutin station, the Czechs signed an agreement with the Bolshevik army to deliver Kolchak in exchange for a share of the gold (representing in fact, more than half), resulting in his execution.

Czech Legion on the train

Plus, on a previous stop in Omsk, one of the wagons had already been robbed by unknown hands, who broke the seals of the train, emptied the containers and killed some of the officers. Through the discovery of an unsent telegram,  it was learned that Lenin gave the order to stop the Czech’s treachery and keep all the gold inside the Russian borders. In the end, the Czechs got away with it, returning to Czechoslovakia where they founded a nationally recognized bank. There are numerous records of these dark deals and their results, which still have impact today. But with time, there have been other findings that suggest the treasure has multiple destinations.

For example, a number of medals belonging to the KGB were found in a private building in the city of Tyumen, with irrefutable records that they belong to the treasure. In addition, they have found the remains of tools connected to the train and its protectors in both caves and under Siberian monasteries. And in 2009 a large batch of containers and train parts were found at the bottom of Lake Baikal. Clearly, the gold found its way into many hands leaving a large collection of treasue maps to be discovered.

Train part in Lake Baikal

The elaboration of this post was based on the following documentary: