Gold, myths and secrets of Lake Baikal

“Magnificent sea, oh holy Baikal” The “Baikal Anthem” created by Dimitrij Davydov begins with these beautiful words. The lake is also affectionately referred to as the “Pearl of Siberia”, as it is the largest freshwater reservoir on our planet. Lake Baikal is big, even huge. With a surface area of 31,500 square kilometers, it is roughly the same size as Belgium. At 1,637 meters to the bottom, it is one of its deepest points and it undisputedly holds the world record. Depending on the season, it comes in majestic silence or with unpredictable storms, which can often generate five to six meter high waves. In winter, when the thermometer can drop to minus 60 degrees, ice freezes up to a thickness of 80 to 110 centimeters. Nothing stands in the way of crossing by car. The 25 million year old lake can tell many stories, some it willingly reveals, but others it keeps in its depths.

A monument to the tsar in Irkutsk

The bronze statue of Tsar Alexander III has been in Irkutsk again since 2003. on the pedestal of the monument erected in 1908 and commemorates the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The section of the Central Siberian Railway ends here in Irkutsk and the legendary Baikal Railway also begins here. The railway line leads in a wide arc around the southern part of Lake Baikal and then branches off in Ulan-Udé. From Ulan-Udé the route continues either to Vladivostok or to Beijing. Not far from Irkutsk, the small village of Listvyanka is picturesquely located next to the Angara River. In the winter of 1919/1920, during the Russian Civil War, White Guards tried to save the Tsar’s treasure across the ice of frozen Lake Baikal to Chita. However, this campaign literally fell through the cracks at the time and the 650 million gold rubles are still said to be resting in the depths of the lake today. What happened and how did the gold get here?

2024 images

Source: Angela Graff

Wagons with boxes full of gold bars and coins

At the beginning of the First World War, a large part of the Tsar’s treasure was moved to the city of Kazan because it was believed to be safe from the enemies here. When the civil war broke out in Russia, the anti-communist troops of the “White Guards” captured the Tsar’s gold when they occupied the city of Kazan and everything was stowed away in wagons. There are said to have been around 80 fully loaded freight cars on the journey to Irkutsk, all with the protection of the White Guards. Here in Irkutsk, the train is tracked down by the Red Guards, whose commander Kolchak, the former admiral of the Black Sea Fleet, is captured and shot on Lenin’s orders. The White Guards desperately fight to free themselves with their valuable cargo and flee again onto the Trans-Siberian railway towards Lake Baikal. They take the wagons to Port Baikal on the southwestern shore of the lake. The winter temperatures have caused the lake to freeze over. In the short summer months, a ferry runs here, taking travelers across the lake to Mysovaja / Babuškin on the eastern shore. In winter, however, countless horse-drawn sleighs take passengers and their luggage across the ice. Goods and freight are handled in the same way. If the ice was thick enough, tracks were quickly laid over the ice and entire wagons could be moved over the ice. For this purpose, teams of horses were harnessed to the individual wagons, as the ice was not always suitable for heavy locomotives.

Collapsed and sunk

Since the gold treasure had to be brought to Chita as quickly as possible so that it would finally be safe, the troops decided on the risky maneuver and chose the gang across the ice. Legends tell of derailed locomotives that caused the ice to collapse. Another story tells of soldiers who froze to death on the ice while transporting the wagons and then the cargo sank after a sudden rise in temperature. Transporting soldiers can be frozen because the winter here is very harsh and icy storms make the cold even worse. On the route across the lake, however, there were felt-lined barracks every six kilometers for warming up. What exactly happened there can no longer be understood today. However, surviving eyewitness reports support a natural version. The ice simply broke under the weight of the railway carriages when the thaw began. However, not all of the treasure was lost back then, but only part of it; the other part is now said to rest in the depths of Lake Baikal. A total of 180 tons of gold is said to have been packed in 5,100 boxes and 1,600 bags. 22 boxes are said to have made it across the ice and reappeared in Japan, 94 tons of gold arrived in France via Germany via mysterious routes. What is interesting and hardly believable is that no one was supposed to have thought about the treasure in Lake Baikal during the Soviet era and is only showing interest in it again today.

Wagons lie on the ground

In 2008, extensive search operations began as part of an expedition. Apparently the focus is on scientific research tasks, and two special mini-submarines are used at a depth of 300 meters. More than a few cartridge boxes from the Civil War era have not been found. Later the search continues, even though the autumn storms cause the waves on Lake Baikal to rise up to six meters high, they try to track down the gold. Finally, at a depth of 700 meters, severely deformed railway carriages are found, the discovery of which immediately sets off treasure hunting fever again. After many failures and poor visibility at depth, some fragments of the wagons are finally brought to the surface of the water. Investigations soon confirmed that these wagons were from that time, although whether they carried the missing gold remained unknown and should remain unknown for the time being. The weather had once again thwarted further exploration and winter quickly set in. The result was that the expedition was aborted.

The hope for gold remains

However, railway carriages are not uncommon on the bottom of Lake Baikal. If you look at the historical fact that during the war with Japan in 1904, tracks had already been laid across the frozen lake. This risky maneuver was chosen at the time in order to transport guns and ammunition to the Pacific as quickly as possible. The route over the ice was in operation from February 28th to March 25th, 1904. Here, too, the wagons were pulled across the ice by horses. Roughly dismantled locomotives brought men to the other bank in this way. In this relatively short time, 60 locomotives and over 2,300 wagons were transported across the lake. There are also reports of accidents and sunken train material from this time.

And so everything is open again and the legends of the sunken Tsar’s treasure flare up to new life. “Oh holy Baikal, wonderful sea.”

Text: Reiner Graff / numiscontrol

Photos/Repros: Angela Graff

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