Tsar gold

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The Tsar's Gold refers to during the Russian Civil War vanished 1918/21 Treasury of the Russian Empire .

At the beginning of the First World War , Russia had one of the largest gold reserves in the world, at 1,337.9 t . It consisted of platinum and gold bars as well as gold and silver coins and was mainly kept in the western Russian cities of Warsaw , Kiev and Riga . With the advance of the Central Powers , it was moved to Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod . To Kazan alone, 500 tons of gold bars and coins were sent in 28 railroad cars.

In the summer of 1918, a civil war began as a result of the October Revolution . A group of the White Army formed in Samara on the Volga under Colonel W. Kappel penetrated the Kazan depot of the State Treasury on August 6, 1918 and seized a considerable part of the gold supply: about 657 million rubles as well as platinum, silver and banknotes in value from 100 million rubles. They submitted it to a committee of the Russian Constituent Assembly , which in September 1918 transferred it to the Ufa board of directors , the white counter-government.

When Kappel withdrew to the Urals , the gold was brought to Omsk by train and handed over to the new leader of the White Guards, Admiral Kolchak . When his army moved to Irkutsk in 1919 (and took 63 boxes of gold with them), it lost part of it to the Red Army in the confusion after Kolchak's shooting , but transported the greater part to it by means of the Czechoslovak legions , which controlled the Trans-Siberian Railway Chita . On the way, however, they were found by Semyonov's Siberian Cossack army , which confiscated 30 boxes.

In Chita, the Japanese army received 20 tons and 466 kilograms of gold (22 boxes; worth around 26,580,000 rubles in 1919) in exchange for a promise to deliver weapons and ammunition. The Yokohama Special Bank later eventually handed it over to the Japanese State Bank ( Nihon Ginko ) .

today

Russia has been trying to get the gold back since 1991, claiming gold worth US $ 80 billion in Japan, US $ 50 billion in Great Britain, US $ 23 billion in the USA and US $ 25 billion in France . According to estimates by the British Pinkerton department, Russia also has claims to foreign real estate valued at $ 300 billion that was acquired during the times of the Tsars. In 2002, the State Duma rejected a motion by right-wing extremist Vladimir Zhirinovsky , according to which Vladimir Putin should start negotiations on the return of the Tsar's gold. In 2004 the topic was dealt with again. According to this, the Japanese share alone corresponds to the total gold and foreign currency reserves of Russia at that time or 2/3 of its foreign debts at the time.

With France, all claims were settled in 1997. Russia paid France 400 million dollars in compensation for the tsar's bonds annulled in 1918 and the confiscation of French property on the territory of the Russian Empire in the course of the nationalization after the revolution of 1917. Russia waived its claims to Kolchak gold.

In summer 2010, while surveying Lake Baikal with the Mir submarines , researchers discovered bars with a golden sheen, which may be part of the Tsar's treasure. A salvage is currently being worked on.

Further meanings of terms

Trains run from St. Petersburg and Moscow to Vladivostok and Beijing under the names Zarengold and Zarenplatin.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russia attempts to reclaim $ 80 billion in Czarist gold  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 4/2004 (link no longer available)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.members.gold.org  
  2. ^ Spiegel Online: Russians are looking for tsar gold in Lake Baikal