The Claim
There’s several hundred tons of Russian gold bars at the bottom of lake Baikal
The amount of gold around the world that has been lost totals in the hundreds of billions of dollars worth, and every country seems to have its own story of how much of their own gold has gone missing, but no countries story comes close to the shear amount that is supposed to be lost somewhere in Russia.
The gold in question is often referred to as Kolchak’s gold, who was an Admiral during the Russian civil war of 1917. During the war Russia split into 2 groups, known as the white Russians and the red Russians, with Admiral Kolchak being the leader of the white anti-Bolshevik movement.
In November of 1918 the Russian empires gold reserve was captured by Kolchak’s forces, and even though no one knows for sure how much was in there, various Russian historians seem to place an average of close to 500 tons. The stash was made up of gold ingots and coins, and apparently also contains a crown worn by a previous monarch of Russia.
Kolchaks war was initially going well, with him capturing large amounts of territory and gaining support from foreign nations. But in 1920 he was betrayed by people who previously supported him and he was handed over to the Bolsheviks, who wasted no time in executing him.
After he died the Red Russian army swept across the country and captured all the territory the White army had taken, ending the war in October of 1922. The only thing is that the initial wealth that had been taken was believed to be around 650 million Roubles worth, but there was only 410 million Roubles worth found at the end of the war, and since it was all in gold there’s no way it could have been destroyed.
The amount would also have been too much to spend in such a short period if Kolchak had access to foreign markets during the war, and if he did spend it in such a place, there’s no evidence of what it actually went on. Both sides used the same types of Russian weapons and gathered their own resources from within the country, so its safe to assume the gold is still in Russia, somewhere.
As for lake Baikal, it is the deepest lake in the world and has a surface area of over 12,000 square miles. Due to the shape of the lake is creates a huge barrier to go around, but it freezes during certain months of the year allowing passage across, shortening a trip to the other side by hundreds of miles.
The story of the gold being in lake Baikal comes from the retreat of the white army who initially took territory in the East of the country. After pushing west and being forced to turn back, they retreated further into their own territory and took all of their wealth with them.
All of the gold was loaded on a train and headed to the south east corner of Russia, as far away from the red army as possible. After several days travel the train arrived at lake Baikal which was frozen at the time. With the red army closing in fast and not having the time to travel the 500 miles round the lake, the gold was taken across its frozen surface to the other side, which is when things went wrong.
There’s several versions of how the gold actually got to the bottom of the lake, but 2 main versions persist above the others. The first is that the gold was travelling round the edge of the lake on the train, when due to either an extreme storm of track sabotage, the train de-railed and fell into the lake.
The other version suggests that the freight cars containing the gold were unhooked one at a time and dragged across the lake by horses, with there being a weak point presumably somewhere in the middle that caused the ice to break.
The biggest question by far is that if its a lake, why hasn’t anyone found the gold yet?, normally this would be a fair point as surely there would be records of where the train tracks were and people who saw it go down, but Lake Baikal is no ordinary lake. First of all it happens to be the deepest lake in the world by a long shot, with a maximum depth of 1,642 meters, and on top of that its coast line runs for just over 1300 miles.
If the gold was taken across the lake, which is normally frozen between January and May, it could have gone down at any point, and the lake is far too deep to dive and even to deep for the average submarine. For someone to search the bottom of the lake would take a fleet of drone submarines months to scan the entire thing, at a cost of most likely several million, and all for the promise that there “might” be gold down there.
Another problem is that because gold is so heavy, and the wooden creates it was transported in would have decomposed into nothing by now, its most likely that if there is any there, its sitting under several feet of mud, so a camera bearing submarine would not be able to see it anyway.
The story of Korchak’s gold has many versions and this is only one of them, but one of the most popular and possible. Other versions range from the government having it and not admitting it, to it being in the hands of countless deserting soldiers and was gradually spent in tiny pieces by hundreds of different people. But until someone finds it, if ever, no one will know the true tale of Kolchak’s gold.
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