Exactly three weeks before the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution, news spread throughout the Kirovsky district of Kursk: at a railway crossing, near the gates of a gypsum factory, someone had planted a mine and a shell. Everyone started talking about it at once, as if the news had not been passed on by word of mouth, but had fallen on the area from somewhere above.

The omnipresent and omniscient boys authoritatively asserted that not one, but ten shells had been found, and not even ten, but fifty-three. Interrupting each other, they told how the green cars of military commandant Bugaev and Colonel Diasamidze rushed towards the plant one after another, how after them flashed the “Victory” cars of the secretary of the district party committee, the chairman of the district executive committee, the chairman of the city council.

Reinforced police and commandant patrols appeared on the roads near the plant. Any movement through the crossing was prohibited. By evening, the restricted zone expanded: it was no longer allowed to walk or drive along one of the streets adjacent to the plant.

The district leaders saw that it was necessary to calm the population, but they could not do this: the impending danger far exceeded even the imagination of the boys.

...Fifteen people gathered in the office of the director of the gypsum plant. There were party and Soviet workers, the military commandant of the city, Lieutenant Colonel Bugaev, and directors of several enterprises adjacent to the plant. Colonel Diasamidze answered their alarming questions: until his people find out what and how is hidden underground, nothing can be said. Having given instructions on the first precautions, he asked everyone to leave the office, which was located twenty meters from the dangerous place.

Only the colonel, the military commandant and two more military specialists remained. They discussed the current situation, called Captain Gorelik, Senior Lieutenant Porotikov and Lieutenant Ivashchenko. The reconnaissance has begun.

Soon a highly elongated ellipse measuring sixty square meters. Mina is always a mystery. Only the one who placed it knows how to defuse a mine. Those who are filming must first figure out how it is laid.

It's not just the bomb that needs to be feared. The worst thing is what surrounds him. A disguised wire can be stretched to it. To neutralize the projectile, you need to cut it. But it happens that this is precisely why he flies into the air. Nobody knows how many mining methods there are. How many miners, so many ways. However, much more. Each miner can come up with dozens of ways to lay mines and shells.

To defuse a mine, you need to research work. But this work is not in the quiet of a scientific office or laboratory, where the main thing is achieved through experiments. Experiments here are unacceptable - they are lethal.

Millimeter by millimeter, officers and three soldiers removed with sapper knives upper layer soil over an area of ​​sixty square meters. Dozens of shells appeared sprinkled with earth, like seals’ backs from the water. The depth of their occurrence was also determined. Now the picture has become clear.

In December of the forty-second year, the fascist leaflet “Kursk News”, published in the occupied city, published the article “Vain Alarm”, in which it announced that “Bolshevism has been completely defeated and Soviet power will never return to Kursk.” The loud and self-confident tone of the article betrayed the genuine anxiety of the Nazis before the powerful offensive of the Soviet Army. After the loss of Voronezh and Kastorny, the Nazi command intended to gain a foothold in Kursk. Large forces were gathered here and a huge amount of ammunition was brought in. Soviet troops defeated the fourth tank, eighty-second infantry and finished off the remnants of four more divisions that came from near Voronezh. The fate of Kursk was decided. The Nazis faced the question: what to do with ammunition depots, where there were more than a million shells and fifteen thousand aircraft bombs? It was already too late to take them out. But also to explode such a quantity of ammunition in short term It didn't seem possible. The Nazis decided to prepare a huge explosion in such a place that after they left it would inevitably cause a new series of explosions where the shells were concentrated. Pyrotechnicians, electricians, and miners began work. The deep hole was filled with shells and mines.

February 8, 1943 Soviet army liberated Kursk. Special teams counted the spoils and took away a million shells and fifteen thousand bombs. But what the German specialists did remained a mystery.

Almost fifteen years have passed since then. In the area where the explosion was planned, new enterprises, dozens of workers' settlement buildings, and hundreds of houses of individual developers grew up.

And deep underground, the ammunition remained hidden from view, concealing enormous destructive power. Mechanisms made by pyrotechnicians, electricians, and miners also remain.

Eighty-four cubic meters of shells and mines seemed to have been unloaded into the pit from a dump truck. But it could only seem so in the first minute. Armor-piercing, high-explosive, fragmentation, cumulative, concrete-piercing shells and mines were laid with an experienced hand so that no one else could touch them.

There are instructions on how to store shells so they don't explode. There are many points in it. And, as if looking at the instructions, they were placed here, doing the exact opposite of what is indicated in each paragraph. The 203-mm caliber blocks lay and stood in the most dangerous positions. Their fuses are lined with mines. Nearby are cumulative shells, and again heavy blanks. All this is not in an even stack, but like a pyramid made of matches: if you take one, they all fall down. But these are not matches. A two hundred and third caliber landmine weighs 122 kilograms. Its length is almost a meter. How to approach such a block? If you stand close to each other, there will be enough space for three to cling to the projectile. For each person there will be more than two and a half pounds.

But is it possible to lift a projectile? What is the guarantee that there is no wire soldered to it from below? And no one doubted that the pyramid was mined. What, for example, should one do with a cumulative projectile, or, as it is also called, an armor-piercing projectile? It doesn't splinter. It burns through the armor with a strong jet of gas. Its thin shell was almost decomposed. Now it can explode from “nothing”: if it gets warm sun rays, if you push lightly... Fifteen years of their underground life left a deep mark on the shells. The metal was corroded, as if struck by a terrible smallpox, the safety caps were rusty and fell apart. The moisture that penetrated inside caused a chemical reaction. Yellow, white, green traces of oxidation spread across the rusty steel. How and on what all this deadly mass rests is difficult to understand.

Time has done its work - the shells have become untouchable. It only missed the explosives. It has the same terrible destructive force the same as fifteen years ago.

With inexorable obviousness and iron logic, the decision came in itself: to blow up the warehouse on the spot.

And again party and Soviet workers, directors of enterprises, representatives railway. They listened in silence to the results of the reconnaissance.

A thorough check revealed a number of signs of extreme danger for transportation, said the military engineer. - According to the current instructions, the presence of any of them, at least one, categorically prohibits us from moving ammunition and obliges us to explode them on the spot. The affected area of ​​the explosion, he finished, is about three kilometers in diameter.

A general sigh, like a groan, escaped from the chests of people. Stunned, they were still silent when they were asked to prepare a plan for the evacuation of equipment and finished products at enterprises located in the first, most dangerous zone.

“I have nothing to prepare,” the director of the gypsum plant rose heavily from his seat. - The enterprise will be demolished almost completely, along with the prefabricated reinforced concrete workshop under construction. But we don’t have finished products. Collective farms in three regions take away the prefabricated utility buildings that we make as soon as they leave the workshops. Here... judge for yourself... - And, spreading his arms helplessly, he sat down.

This story was told by the famous professional treasure hunter Vladimir Poryvaev. It is absolutely reliable and can serve as a warning to both inexperienced people and overly greedy people, both robbers and romantics.

FRIENDS IN ACCIDENT

About two years ago I was collecting practical material on one of the military operations of the Belarusian Front in western Russia. He worked alone, went wild, one might say, living in the forest in a tent, often eating pasture, completely cut off from the usual urban conditions. There I realized that by nature I was not at all a loner: I involuntarily constantly looked around, looking for human society.

One day I was lucky to spot the camp of two “black diggers”. We looked at each other for some time.

They went to their places to dig, while I collected material from mine. Finally we met and united our sites. This is convenient because you can always leave someone to look after things and prepare food.

The guys turned out to be wonderful: sociable, reliable, having seen a lot in their time, it’s no wonder that the exchange of stories around the night fire sometimes lasted until the morning.

Days passed - very different: sometimes I was lucky, sometimes they were lucky, but nothing particularly outstanding came across to anyone! But we became such good friends that we decided to join forces to explore and unravel the secrets of the Russian land together, and share the trophies like brothers among the three of us.

GERMAN DUGGER

And then one cloudy evening, when the wind furiously tore and drove heavy clouds ready to rain, a serious discovery happened. I guarded the camp all day, prepared food, checked ammunition. And when the guys returned, they were very excited. I asked what happened.

Interrupting each other, almost quarreling, they excitedly told me about how they found a destroyed dugout with the remains of a high-ranking German officer. On the tarpaulin lay expensive orders, medals, intricately decorated personalized weapons, several mysterious little things - a couple of medallions that looked like family heirlooms, and a strange talisman.

- Now look at this! — without hiding his pride, one pulled out from his bosom a blade in a half-rotten scabbard, but elegantly made, and with a blade completely covered with runes.

Another said irritably:

- Of course, the first worthwhile find of the entire expedition, and he immediately grabs the knife and demands it as his share!

- But I refuse everything else! - the first one objected. “I’ll only take this blade.”

To be honest, I didn’t like the blade right away, and this discord between the guys broke out because of it. Inspecting the precious weapon, I noted its amazing sharpness for a blade that had spent so much time in the ground. At some point it seemed that it was trying to dig itself into the palm...

The blade was terribly cold! It’s clear: metal extracted from the earth... But this coldness of the knife - I could swear! - was special: not the cold of nothingness, but rather the cold of evil. However, it was necessary to reconcile the guys, and I brushed aside the bad thoughts:

- A strange thing... And even these runes - who knows what is encrypted in them? It’s best to hand over the blade as soon as possible, get the money and forget the whole story! In general, all these grave finds are an unpleasant matter...

But the guy seemed to fall in love with the blade. He begged, demanded and threatened. The second one gave up and recognized him as the owner of the find. The next morning I had to leave. We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to definitely go on the next expedition together.

Before leaving, I once again reminded the guys to be sure to carry out the reburial according to all the rules and inform the local administration. Unfortunately, they forgot about this - as well as about our agreement to dig together.

STRANGE DEATH

A month later, the owner of the blade went on a solo expedition, violating all conceivable and inconceivable rules of the digger, and for a loner, strict adherence to them directly ensures the opportunity to survive. In addition, he also drank and, forgetting about caution, boasted to the local residents about his finds.

And then one day he began to light a fire without first checking the place: there was a charge under the fire...

If this was a murder, then it is unprovable: the explosion distorts the picture of the crime scene, and in general - you never know who walks through the forest, and everyone is armed, and besides, the earth stores a lot of unexploded ammunition!

GRAY-HAIRED OLD MAN

It must be said that treasure hunters follow the laws of inheritance of finds even more strictly than in ordinary life. Therefore, the blade moved on to the second one, especially since I had no desire to have it. And he immediately started drinking - completely without reason, as seen from the outside. One day a guy called me late at night and complained for a long time in some kind of semi-delirium: they say, every night a menacing gray-haired old man appears to him and demands: “Give back what belongs to me!”

I admit, I was confused. I advised him to quickly sell the damned blade and see a psychiatrist. But he, apparently, had already moved on in his mind - he could not accept the very thought of the possibility of parting with the enemy’s weapons! A couple of weeks later I found out that he fell drunk from his own balcony. Maybe he went out to smoke and became dizzy, or maybe the ghost advised him to take his own life...

A CHAIN ​​OF MISTAKES

Now, by right of inheritance, the blade went to me. I held the enemy’s weapon in my hands, and the sticky web of horror gradually fettered my will. I didn't know what to do with it, so I just brought it home. Within a week after he arrived at my home, all our pets died - not one, not two, but all of them!

German dagger with Nazi symbols. Thematic image.

Then I took the blade, with secret hope for buyers, to one of the shopping malls in Moscow, where I sell military antiques. For some reason, the collectors didn’t even notice the blade, although it lay in the most visible place; in any case, no one even took an interest in it for a month. At the same time, my wife was admitted to the hospital.

And I was getting worse: that is, there were no definite signs of this or that disease, but I was just getting weaker day by day, losing my will and interest in life. Finally, while filming a report about the expedition that discovered the remains of a German officer, just as I was telling the story of the blade, I feel so bad...

With numb lips I say: “One is covered, the second is covered, apparently, I’m next... Guys, stop filming, I’m going to fall!” But they were inspired and continued to film intensively, apparently counting on the colossal success of the TV report if the last person who came into contact with the blade died right in live. In general, having somehow held out until the end of the airtime, I asked the TV crew to take me home.

I took my temperature - almost forty-two! But instead of the hospital, gathering his last strength, he took the blade to his second job - to a thriving well-known company. Literally the very next day, the two co-founders begin to quarrel, and in the end it comes to the point that the company simply closes down.

I take the damned blade again and bury it near the store under a large spreading tree. I think, phew, I finally got rid of it! You won’t believe it, but from that moment life began to get better. But only in the spring this luxurious tree does not bloom - it stands naked, without a single leaf!..

My wife and I thought and decided that getting rid of an enemy’s weapon by killing a living person is a great sin, so I was not afraid to dig up the blade, and then, apparently, the Lord took pity: one of my casual acquaintances began to beg for it from me.

I had to donate it. However, the guy was no slouch and, as I understand it, having felt the forces of evil hidden in the blade, he soon got rid of it and gave it to a friend. The transfer of enemy weapons continued endlessly. The last thing I heard about it: the blade was donated to one of the small regional museums, which burned down shortly after the event...

In the period from 1945 to the present day, parts of that very bloody war, the war for human ideals, are found all over the earth. Summer residents find unexploded shells, grenades and mines in their gardens. Search teams, divers, fishermen and ordinary mushroom pickers find tanks and planes. Let's remember what was found and raised.

P-39Q-15 Airacobra aircraft, serial number 44-2911 was discovered at the bottom of Lake Mart-Yavr (Murmansk region) in 2004. The fighter was spotted by a fisherman, who reported that he saw the outline of the plane's tail through the water, on the muddy bottom. When the plane was recovered from the lake bed, it turned out that both cockpit doors were locked, although usually, during a hard landing, one or both would be thrown back to allow the pilot to exit. Presumably, the pilot could have died immediately from a strong impact of the plane on the bottom or from flooding of the cabin.

The found remains were buried with full honors on the Walk of Fame in Murmansk.

The wing 12.7 mm machine guns on the aircraft were removed. The fuselage armament and the 37 mm Colt-Browning M4 motor gun did not undergo any modifications.

Supplies of ammunition and stewed meat were also found inside the cabin. In a separate case, a flight book and other documents were found, heavily washed away by water.

The aircraft was built in 1939 and saw action in the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain before serving on the Eastern Front. On April 4, 1942, German fighter ace Wolf Dietrich Wilcke, piloting this plane, was shot down and forced to land on a frozen lake. Wilke escaped death. The plane remained almost unscathed after a near-perfect emergency landing until it plunged to the bottom of the lake. There it remained untouched for more than six decades, until it was finally raised in 2003. Countless bullet holes located on the plane's wings and horizontal stabilizers were one of the main reasons for the plane's accident, but one large hole in the right wing attachment point may have been what killed the fighter.

Brewster F2A Buffalo - BW-372. The plane was found in Lake Bolshoye Kalijärvi at a depth of 15 meters in a depression in the middle of the lake. The underwater environment was ideal for preserving the vehicle. Having lain for 56 years at the bottom of the lake, the fighter was completely immersed in silt; this slowed down the corrosion process, but became an obstacle when rising, making it difficult to lift it off the bottom. Its pilot, Finnish fighter ace Lauri Pekuri, was shot down on June 25, 1942 during a battle with pilots of the 609 IAP in air combat over the Soviet airfield Segezha in the Murmansk region. Pekuri had already shot down two Russian planes before he was forced to land his own. The pilot left the damaged Brewster and reached his positions.

An F6F Hellcat crashed on the morning of January 5th at Last year war. The pilot Walter Elcock, who was sitting at the helm, lost control during a training flight and fell into the air together with the plane. ice water Michigan, however, managed to swim out.

The only Dornier Do-17 bomber that has survived to this day was raised from the bottom of the English Channel. The plane was shot down during the Battle of Britain in 1940. This is one of one and a half thousand sharpened by Germany, and the only one that has survived today. The Dornier Do-17 stood out among its contemporary bombers for its high speed. It was originally designed as a fast reconnaissance aircraft, but was redesigned as a bomber in the mid-1930s. The plane was attempting to attack airfields in Essex. It was possible to restore the call sign of the recovered aircraft - 5K-AR. The plane with these call signs was shot down on August 26, 1940. The pilot and another crew member were captured and sent to a prison camp. Two other crew members were killed

The Soviet attack aircraft Il-2 was found by fishermen. The plane was lying relatively shallow. Apparently, the plane was severely damaged during the battle; it went under water, breaking into pieces. Fortunately, the looters did not reach the plane - evidence of this is the preserved remains of the pilot: no one entered the cockpit.

The front part and wing are well preserved. The plane's tail number could not be found, but the engine and propeller numbers were preserved. Using these numbers they will try to identify the pilot's name.

A B25 bomber recovered from the bottom of Lake Murray in South Carolina.

This P-40 “Kittyhawk” crashed in 1942 three hundred kilometers from civilization, in the heat of the desert. Sergeant Dennis Copping took from crashed plane the little that could be useful to him, and went into the desert. Since that day nothing has been known about the sergeant. Seventy years later, the plane was found almost untouched. Even the machine guns and their ammunition, as well as most of the instruments in the cockpit, survived. The vehicle's nameplates have survived, making it possible for historians to reconstruct the history of its service.

Focke-Wulf Fw-190 Yellow 16 Designed by German aeronautical engineer Kurt Tank, the Focke-Wulf Fw-190 "Würger" (Strangler) was one of the most successful fighter aircraft of World War II. Entering service in August 1941, it was popular among pilots and was flown by some of the Luftwaffe's most elite fighter aces. During the war years, more than 20,000 of these aircraft were produced. Only 23 aircraft survive in complete configuration, and they are all in different collections around the world. This remarkably preserved Fw-190 was recovered from the cold waters off the Norwegian island of Sotra, west of the city of Bergen.

In the Murmansk region, near the village of Safonovo-1, an Il-2 attack aircraft from the 46th ShAP of the Northern Fleet Air Force was lifted from the bottom of Lake Krivoye. The plane was discovered in December 2011 in the middle of the lake at a depth of 17-20 meters. On November 25, 1943, due to damage received in an air battle, the Il-2 did not reach its airfield by about three kilometers and made an emergency landing on the frozen Lake Krivoye. The commander, junior lieutenant Valentin Skopintsev, and the air gunner, Red Navy man Vladimir Gumenny, got out of the plane. After some time, the ice broke, and the attack aircraft went under water, only to reappear on the surface 68 years later.

Lake Krivoe generally turned out to be rich in aircraft found. A Yak-1 aircraft from the 20th IAP of the Northern Fleet Air Force was also lifted from the bottom of the lake. On August 28, 1943, during a flight, the fighter made an emergency landing on the surface of the lake and sank. Piloted by junior lieutenant Demidov. To date, there is only one Yak-1 in the world out of more than 8,000 built. This is the Yak-1B Hero fighter Soviet Union Boris Eremin, who was transferred to the pilot’s homeland, to the local history museum of the city of Saratov. Thus, the raised Yak-1 fighter will be the second in the world today.

On the hot morning of Monday, July 19, 1943, Sergeant Major Paul Ratz got into the cockpit of his Focke-Wulf Fw190A-5/U3 WNr.1227, “White A” from 4./JG 54, and took off from the Siverskaya airfield. The departure was carried out by a pair of staff vehicles; it was about a 15-minute flight to the front line; crossing the front line on the Dvina River, the pair moved further to the east. In the Voybokalo area, planes attacked a Soviet armored train. During the attack, the vehicle was damaged by air defense fire; one of the hits pierced the tank and injured the pilot. The pilot pulled to the base until the last minute, but having lost a lot of blood, he made an emergency landing. The plane landed in a clearing in the middle of the forest, and after landing the pilot died.

The Aviation Museum in Krakow carried out an operation to recover from the bottom of the Baltic Sea the wreckage of an American Douglas A-20 bomber that sank during World War II. For the museum, this exhibit is a real treasure, since there are only 12 such aircraft left in the world.

Hawker Hurricane IIB “Trop” fighter, Z5252, onboard “white 01″ from the second guards fighter aviation regiment of the Northern Air Force. Pilot Lieutenant P.P. Markov. On June 2, 1942, he made an emergency landing after a battle on a lake west of Murmansk. In 2004 it was raised from the bottom of the lake.

This I-153 Chaika fighter was lost near Vyborg on the last day of the Winter War.

A B-24D Liberator rests on Atka Island in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, where it crash-landed on December 9, 1942. This aircraft is one of eight surviving "D" version Liberators. He was on a weather reconnaissance mission when inclement weather prevented him from landing at any of the nearby airfields.

"Junkers Ju-88". Spitsbergen. Early versions of the German Luftwaffe's Junkers Ju-88 aircraft, which entered service in 1939, underwent many technical modifications during their development. But once these were eliminated, the twin-engine Ju-88 became one of the most versatile combat aircraft of World War II, serving in a variety of roles from torpedo bomber to heavy reconnaissance fighter.

An IL-2 plane was lifted from the bottom of the Black Sea. Presumably, he was shot down in 1943, when there were fierce battles for Novorossiysk. Now the historical find has been delivered to Gelendzhik.

The German Ju 52 aircraft was raised from the bottom of the sea by employees of the Greek Air Force Museum on June 15, 2013. During the siege of Leros in 1943, the plane was shot down by anti-aircraft guns off the coast of the island. He's been down ever since Aegean Sea for more than 60 years, when local divers, with the help of the Greek Air Force War Museum, discovered it again.

The German military recovered the remains of the Nazi bomber JU 87 Stuka from the bottom of the Baltic Sea. On this moment There are only two original examples of this military aircraft in the world, which are presented in museums in London and Chicago. The Ju-87 "Stuka" was discovered at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in the 1990s. However, work to raise the aircraft started much later. According to experts, the plane was preserved in good condition, despite the fact that it lay at the bottom of the sea for about 70 years.

The 70-year-old plane was lost in the impassable forest wilds somewhere on the border of Pskov, Novgorod and Leningrad regions. A search party from Novgorod accidentally discovered it on a patch of land surrounded by swamps. By some miracle, the plane completely survived, but neither its history, nor the model, nor the fate of the pilot have yet been clarified. According to some signs, this is a Yak-1. The car is completely overgrown with moss, and search engines have not yet touched it for fear of damaging the rarity. What is known is that the plane was not shot down, its engine simply failed.

Curtiss-Wright P-40E airborne “white 51” from the 20th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. Pilot junior lieutenant A.V. Pshenev. Shot down on June 1, 1942. The pilot landed on a lake. Found in 1997 at the bottom of Code Lake west of Murmansk.

The twin-engine long-range bomber - DB-3, later called Il-4, was used as a long-range reconnaissance aircraft, torpedo bomber, minelayer, and a means of landing people and cargo. The last combat missions of the IL-4 were carried out on Far East during the war with Japan. Was found by searchers in the swamps of the Kola Peninsula.

Messerschmitt Bf109 G-2/R6 B “Yellow 3”

German fighter Messerschmitt Bf109 G-2. which made an emergency landing in the sea near Nereus, Norway on March 24, 1943. It was raised in 2010 from a depth of 67 meters.

Henkel He-115, raised from the bottom in Norway.

The half-sunken Flying Fortress No. 41-2446 had lain in Aghaimbo Swamp Australia since 1942, where its captain, Frederick Fred Eaton Jr., made an emergency landing after his aircraft was damaged by enemy fighters over Rabaul in East New Britain. Despite several bullets, shattered plexiglass and bent propellers, the B-17E remained largely corrosion-free 70 years after it crashed into the ground.

This Douglas SBD "Dauntless", a Battle of Midway veteran, was salvaged from the waters of Lake Michigan in 1994. In June 1942, during a raid on Japanese aircraft carriers west of Midway, the Neustrashimy was riddled with 219 bullets and was one of only eight aircraft to return to base out of 16 that had departed. The plane returned to the United States for repairs, where it crashed during a training flight to the aircraft carrier Sable.

Half-buried at an abandoned military airfield in the shadow of the mighty Mount Pagan volcano, the skeletal remains of a Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero fighter jet are the remains of one of two Japanese aircraft that crashed on the western side of Pagan Island, part of the Mariana Islands.

Unfortunately, most of the aircraft found in Russia have long been sold abroad, where they were restored and put on the wing. It’s very disappointing that we, even for a lot of money, gave valuable exhibits of that Great War. But even so, they would have disappeared in the dark waters of lakes and swamps forever.