How Russian gold fell into the clutches of Japanese banks
The question of a considerable part of the gold reserves of the Russian Empire, which turned out to be a century ago in Japan and since then disappeared into the depths of its bottomless "bins", simply could not but gain new relevance in connection with the ongoing interstate negotiations that have turned into a real "war of nerves." At some stage, when it seemed that Tokyo and Moscow could well come to a mutually acceptable agreement, they tried not to raise this painful topic. However, now, after Shinzo Abe’s new statement on Japanese sovereignty over "all northern territories", it becomes obvious - the Land of the Rising Sun is the time to recall some historical facts that are not at all tinted with it.
So, in short - the essence of the matter is that after, let's say, not too brilliant actions of the army of the Russian Empire during the First World War, the state gold reserve in 1915, which was previously stored just in the West of the country, was transported far from sin to the East - mainly to the Volga region. It is precisely because of this circumstance that soldiers of the White Guard Colonel Kappel burst into the cellars of the State Treasury in Kazan and became owners of treasures worth 657 million gold rubles. This is not counting the values in the form of ingots of platinum, gold, silver and products from them. Well, about the little things, like 100 million rubles in paper "credit cards" and it’s not worth mentioning ...
Subsequently, this huge mountain of treasures, which hardly fit into the "golden echelon", numbering 25 wagons, was in the hands of Admiral Kolchak, whose army joined the Kappelites after the proclamation of such "Supreme Ruler of Russia." Since that very time, gold flowed to Japan - first as payment under quite official military contracts, and then ... Well, we will dwell on this very “later” in more detail, but for now we will admit as a fact to the Land of the Rising Sun for the years of the Civil War didn’t take “kilograms” - tons of Russian gold, which played an important role in raising it economics and an increase in military power. If we take into account that the vast majority of these funds were placed in Japan not anyhow, but as official deposits in the local banks, the interest on those over the course of a century “ran up” simply mind-blowing. However, Tokyo flatly refuses not only to discuss the return of Russia of its hard-earned gold, but also to talk about making any payments for using it. Why is everything this way? Let's figure it out ...
I must say, for some skeptics, the question periodically arises: "Did this very" royal gold "exist in nature at all, so inexplicably" dissolved "in inconceivable volumes after the revolution?" Imagine - yes. The statistics of such a boring office as the State Moment Court is a strict thing. So, according to that, only in 1899 in Russia 27 million gold pieces were minted - coins in denominations of 10 rubles and weighing almost 9 grams each with the profile of the emperor of all-Russian Nikolai II. Next year - 6 million. And then for another three years, the circulation of the gold “tens” exceeded 2 million copies. But there were also coins of a different denomination, minted in the same metal - at 5, 15 and even 7 and a half rubles. Yes, and ingots, products, the same rich church utensils. So the allegations about the gold reserves of Russia, as one of the richest in the world, estimated at almost one and a half thousand tons of this metal, are pure truth. There was gold in Russia, there was ...
By the way, to call it “Kolchakovo” is, as it were, not very correct. Captured him, as Kappel had already said. This gold was Russian, Russian! Admiral Kolchak, in truth, in the realities of the Civil was the most common impostor. Okay, unusual. Outstanding ... I’m ready to believe that he really, according to his own declarations, at first was determined to “save the treasury intact until entering Moscow and St. Petersburg”, without taking a ruble from there. However, it was still necessary to reach the capitals, and this was to be done with battles. Therefore, Japan received the first "tranches" from Russia's gold reserve precisely from the admiral - his army needed weapons, ammunition and uniforms before the cut, and the Japanese flatly refused to deliver them. Thus, Kolchak transferred to Japan about 44 thousand kilograms of gold.
The most genuine agreements on making collateral totaling 54 and a half million gold rubles between the Japanese Yokohama Shokin Ginko (Yokohama Hurry up Bank) and the Tokyo representatives of the Omsk government of Russia were discovered in the archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry . Everything is documented - both the fact of the loan and the fact that Russian gold subsequently ended up in the State Bank of Japan, allowing you to instantly increase the country's gold reserve by ten times! At the same time, one cannot but mention the fact that the Japanese side acted in this case simply in a bestial way: Kolchak was simply “thrown”. In reality, the armament was put on a miserable amount of 300 thousand dollars in comparison with the pledge. And even then it was no longer received by the Kolchakites, but by the chieftain Semenov.
There is a special conversation about this character, who has completely deservedly completed her life in the Lefortov basement with a noose around her neck in 1946. Through his raking hands, the little gold to the samurai went much more than from Kolchak. First, 33 boxes of precious metal exchanged at the Chosen Ginko Bank for yen, and then another 143 boxes filled to the top with precious bullion and coins, “deposited” with Japanese military intelligence colonel Hitoshi Kurosawa! And that was far from all - already in 1920, the Semenovites again delivered to Tokyo a “golden load” valued at one and a half million yen. And the ataman himself, who had settled in the Land of the Rising Sun, after being knocked out of Russian soil by the red, according to reports, kept a gold coin in the local banks for more than half a million yen - solely as “personal savings”.
There were others ... General Rozanov, in 1920, together with the Japanese, arranged a natural raid on the bank of Vladivostok and cleaned out from there everything that had gold and other valuables in the depository. Presumably, he grabbed quite a bit - even paying off his accomplices, Rozanov subsequently placed on the accounts of Tokyo and Shanghai banks a “modest” amount of 55 million yen! And a year later - it sank into the water. Dissolved, without spending, practically nothing. And there were still white generals Petrov, Podtyagin, Istrov - the Japanese poured gold on the Japanese with boxes, sacks, millions of rubles. Kolchak's “Golden Echelon” has sunk into eternity. Part of it went to the Bolsheviks, some share was probably blatantly stolen by the white-collar Socialist Revolutionaries who handed over to Kolchak (otherwise, where would the “Legia Bank” come from?), The fate of some gold is not known for certain. Dreamers and adventurers consider him hidden and dream of a "discovery of the century." To this day, many are trying to discover the “Kolchak Treasure” - from amateur archaeologists to very serious organizations and citizens. However, most likely, the traces of all those chervonets who are this obsessed with dreams must still be sought in Japanese banks.
However, not in them alone. According to many historians, not just the lion's share, but almost all the gold from the 143 boxes transferred by Semenov Kurosawa "stuck to the hands" of the command of the Kwantung Army. In any case, according to Japanese sources, these brave warriors handed over to the treasury as "military trophies" ... two bars with a total weight of seven and a half kilos! Most likely, this money did not even go to the personal enrichment of the generals, but to strengthen and arm this powerful group, which subsequently occupied almost the whole of China, and fell only under the blows of our glorious grandfathers and great-grandfathers in 1945. True, the Soviet soldiers and officers paid for this victory with their own blood. Managed to spoil the damn chieftain!
Attempts to scratch Russian gold from tenacious samurai hands were made, moreover, repeated ones. In the 20s and 30s of the last century, representatives of the white émigré attempted to make a fuss, first of all, the same Semenov. The former chief of the rear of the Kolchak army, General Petrov, was also zealous. All claims were rejected by the Japanese side without hesitation. The Soviet government was not up to it at that time: it was necessary to regularly give to the presumptuous samurai, which was done - first on Lake Hassan, then on the Khalkhingol River. And the successor of the Russian Empire to the USSR did not want to admit categorically. That, however, did not prevent the Japanese side with its insolence ... to demand from the Soviet Union the return of the "debts" of the tsarist government for military supplies! The most amazing thing is that having firmly invested their minds in the samurai in 1945, nobody even tried to shake out the royal gold from them. Why this happened is decidedly incomprehensible.
It would seem that things moved forward when in 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev recognized the Soviet Union as the successor of tsarist Russia. However, everything turned out in Gorbachev's style. The “royal debts” of the West rushed to pay headlong, and did not bother to return their money. True, already in Russia, in 1992, a special expert council was created on Russian gold settled abroad and “royal debts”. Incidentally, this included some of the descendants of those who transported Russian gold in boxes to Japan. However, despite the high-profile name and the prefix "international", this council had the status of a merely public organization, which is why it all ended with the expected result - the next grandiose projections and other boltology in the "perestroika" spirit. No one is not that nor a piece of gold - they didn’t return the broken half of the broken line ...
Are there any chances to return the gold of the Russian Empire from Japan today? We will speak frankly - they are extremely small. And the point here is not even that, for example, "Yokohama Shokin Ginko" long ago became the "Tok Ginko", and then completely turned into a "Mitsubishi Ginko Tok." By all rules, financial institutions inherit not only assets and debts. And the same, for example, the agreement on advance contributions of Kolchak, in theory, may well become the basis for lawsuits. But does Russia, with the current attitude of the West towards it, have a chance to win at least one such process? In whose favor, do you think, in this case the verdicts of the international courts of London or of the same Stockholm will be issued? Yes, the West is simply afraid to create such a precedent - too many of its countries have plundered Russia and the USSR for centuries!
But to use the "golden" question in the process of negotiating with Tokyo, Moscow is not just worth it, but is absolutely necessary. It is clear that when Putin himself tries to voice claims of this kind, the Japanese side is likely to forgive, “turn on the fool”: “What is such a soliot? My do not know, my do not understand! " Nevertheless, it is necessary to “crush” them with these stolen millions, at least with the same persistence with which the Japanese side continues to repeat about the “lost northern territories”. “Give the islands back!” “First return the gold!” Moreover, neither Kolchakovo nor Semenovskoy gold is far from exhausting our claims against Japan even for the described historical period.
The truth, in truth, is the fact that Russia never mentioned that during the Civil War Japan acted in relation to our country not only as a robber and swindler, but also as an interventionist and invader. In Japan itself these events are called the Siberian Expedition ... The “expedition” is good - with the forces of 11 divisions! 70 thousand Japanese "bayonets" pressed into our land - with research, obviously, goals. Three thousand of those, by the way, found her a well-deserved death at the hands of her defenders. But how many Russian people did they kill ?! And they, by the way, were also robbed “from the bottom of their hearts” - more than 2 thousand railway wagons and more than three hundred river and sea vessels were stolen only in Manchuria. Yes, only one illegal catch of fish by the Japanese during this period brought, as it was later calculated, Russia's losses by 4 and a half million rubles in gold!
But okay - they just robbed. In my opinion, the authorities of Russia have either completely forgotten or deliberately ignored the fact that the Japanese staged the real “Siberian Khatyn” - on March 22, 1919, several hundred inhabitants of the village of Ivanovka were destroyed by their warriors and the village itself was burned to the ground! And this is far from an isolated case. The Japanese invaders carried out such "purges" and intimidation actions in many villages and villages of the Amur region. By the way, members of the All-Japan Association of Former Prisoners of War come to Ivanovo, by the way, on a regular basis. This year the tragedy marks exactly one hundred years - so maybe Vladimir Vladimirovich should invite Mr. Shinzo Abe personally to the event? May she repent too! It’s quite possible to do without the ritual seppuka for the prime minister - but talking about the fact that Russia of Japan “should” be definitely worth ending with!
So, in short - the essence of the matter is that after, let's say, not too brilliant actions of the army of the Russian Empire during the First World War, the state gold reserve in 1915, which was previously stored just in the West of the country, was transported far from sin to the East - mainly to the Volga region. It is precisely because of this circumstance that soldiers of the White Guard Colonel Kappel burst into the cellars of the State Treasury in Kazan and became owners of treasures worth 657 million gold rubles. This is not counting the values in the form of ingots of platinum, gold, silver and products from them. Well, about the little things, like 100 million rubles in paper "credit cards" and it’s not worth mentioning ...
Subsequently, this huge mountain of treasures, which hardly fit into the "golden echelon", numbering 25 wagons, was in the hands of Admiral Kolchak, whose army joined the Kappelites after the proclamation of such "Supreme Ruler of Russia." Since that very time, gold flowed to Japan - first as payment under quite official military contracts, and then ... Well, we will dwell on this very “later” in more detail, but for now we will admit as a fact to the Land of the Rising Sun for the years of the Civil War didn’t take “kilograms” - tons of Russian gold, which played an important role in raising it economics and an increase in military power. If we take into account that the vast majority of these funds were placed in Japan not anyhow, but as official deposits in the local banks, the interest on those over the course of a century “ran up” simply mind-blowing. However, Tokyo flatly refuses not only to discuss the return of Russia of its hard-earned gold, but also to talk about making any payments for using it. Why is everything this way? Let's figure it out ...
I must say, for some skeptics, the question periodically arises: "Did this very" royal gold "exist in nature at all, so inexplicably" dissolved "in inconceivable volumes after the revolution?" Imagine - yes. The statistics of such a boring office as the State Moment Court is a strict thing. So, according to that, only in 1899 in Russia 27 million gold pieces were minted - coins in denominations of 10 rubles and weighing almost 9 grams each with the profile of the emperor of all-Russian Nikolai II. Next year - 6 million. And then for another three years, the circulation of the gold “tens” exceeded 2 million copies. But there were also coins of a different denomination, minted in the same metal - at 5, 15 and even 7 and a half rubles. Yes, and ingots, products, the same rich church utensils. So the allegations about the gold reserves of Russia, as one of the richest in the world, estimated at almost one and a half thousand tons of this metal, are pure truth. There was gold in Russia, there was ...
By the way, to call it “Kolchakovo” is, as it were, not very correct. Captured him, as Kappel had already said. This gold was Russian, Russian! Admiral Kolchak, in truth, in the realities of the Civil was the most common impostor. Okay, unusual. Outstanding ... I’m ready to believe that he really, according to his own declarations, at first was determined to “save the treasury intact until entering Moscow and St. Petersburg”, without taking a ruble from there. However, it was still necessary to reach the capitals, and this was to be done with battles. Therefore, Japan received the first "tranches" from Russia's gold reserve precisely from the admiral - his army needed weapons, ammunition and uniforms before the cut, and the Japanese flatly refused to deliver them. Thus, Kolchak transferred to Japan about 44 thousand kilograms of gold.
The most genuine agreements on making collateral totaling 54 and a half million gold rubles between the Japanese Yokohama Shokin Ginko (Yokohama Hurry up Bank) and the Tokyo representatives of the Omsk government of Russia were discovered in the archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry . Everything is documented - both the fact of the loan and the fact that Russian gold subsequently ended up in the State Bank of Japan, allowing you to instantly increase the country's gold reserve by ten times! At the same time, one cannot but mention the fact that the Japanese side acted in this case simply in a bestial way: Kolchak was simply “thrown”. In reality, the armament was put on a miserable amount of 300 thousand dollars in comparison with the pledge. And even then it was no longer received by the Kolchakites, but by the chieftain Semenov.
There is a special conversation about this character, who has completely deservedly completed her life in the Lefortov basement with a noose around her neck in 1946. Through his raking hands, the little gold to the samurai went much more than from Kolchak. First, 33 boxes of precious metal exchanged at the Chosen Ginko Bank for yen, and then another 143 boxes filled to the top with precious bullion and coins, “deposited” with Japanese military intelligence colonel Hitoshi Kurosawa! And that was far from all - already in 1920, the Semenovites again delivered to Tokyo a “golden load” valued at one and a half million yen. And the ataman himself, who had settled in the Land of the Rising Sun, after being knocked out of Russian soil by the red, according to reports, kept a gold coin in the local banks for more than half a million yen - solely as “personal savings”.
There were others ... General Rozanov, in 1920, together with the Japanese, arranged a natural raid on the bank of Vladivostok and cleaned out from there everything that had gold and other valuables in the depository. Presumably, he grabbed quite a bit - even paying off his accomplices, Rozanov subsequently placed on the accounts of Tokyo and Shanghai banks a “modest” amount of 55 million yen! And a year later - it sank into the water. Dissolved, without spending, practically nothing. And there were still white generals Petrov, Podtyagin, Istrov - the Japanese poured gold on the Japanese with boxes, sacks, millions of rubles. Kolchak's “Golden Echelon” has sunk into eternity. Part of it went to the Bolsheviks, some share was probably blatantly stolen by the white-collar Socialist Revolutionaries who handed over to Kolchak (otherwise, where would the “Legia Bank” come from?), The fate of some gold is not known for certain. Dreamers and adventurers consider him hidden and dream of a "discovery of the century." To this day, many are trying to discover the “Kolchak Treasure” - from amateur archaeologists to very serious organizations and citizens. However, most likely, the traces of all those chervonets who are this obsessed with dreams must still be sought in Japanese banks.
However, not in them alone. According to many historians, not just the lion's share, but almost all the gold from the 143 boxes transferred by Semenov Kurosawa "stuck to the hands" of the command of the Kwantung Army. In any case, according to Japanese sources, these brave warriors handed over to the treasury as "military trophies" ... two bars with a total weight of seven and a half kilos! Most likely, this money did not even go to the personal enrichment of the generals, but to strengthen and arm this powerful group, which subsequently occupied almost the whole of China, and fell only under the blows of our glorious grandfathers and great-grandfathers in 1945. True, the Soviet soldiers and officers paid for this victory with their own blood. Managed to spoil the damn chieftain!
Attempts to scratch Russian gold from tenacious samurai hands were made, moreover, repeated ones. In the 20s and 30s of the last century, representatives of the white émigré attempted to make a fuss, first of all, the same Semenov. The former chief of the rear of the Kolchak army, General Petrov, was also zealous. All claims were rejected by the Japanese side without hesitation. The Soviet government was not up to it at that time: it was necessary to regularly give to the presumptuous samurai, which was done - first on Lake Hassan, then on the Khalkhingol River. And the successor of the Russian Empire to the USSR did not want to admit categorically. That, however, did not prevent the Japanese side with its insolence ... to demand from the Soviet Union the return of the "debts" of the tsarist government for military supplies! The most amazing thing is that having firmly invested their minds in the samurai in 1945, nobody even tried to shake out the royal gold from them. Why this happened is decidedly incomprehensible.
It would seem that things moved forward when in 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev recognized the Soviet Union as the successor of tsarist Russia. However, everything turned out in Gorbachev's style. The “royal debts” of the West rushed to pay headlong, and did not bother to return their money. True, already in Russia, in 1992, a special expert council was created on Russian gold settled abroad and “royal debts”. Incidentally, this included some of the descendants of those who transported Russian gold in boxes to Japan. However, despite the high-profile name and the prefix "international", this council had the status of a merely public organization, which is why it all ended with the expected result - the next grandiose projections and other boltology in the "perestroika" spirit. No one is not that nor a piece of gold - they didn’t return the broken half of the broken line ...
Are there any chances to return the gold of the Russian Empire from Japan today? We will speak frankly - they are extremely small. And the point here is not even that, for example, "Yokohama Shokin Ginko" long ago became the "Tok Ginko", and then completely turned into a "Mitsubishi Ginko Tok." By all rules, financial institutions inherit not only assets and debts. And the same, for example, the agreement on advance contributions of Kolchak, in theory, may well become the basis for lawsuits. But does Russia, with the current attitude of the West towards it, have a chance to win at least one such process? In whose favor, do you think, in this case the verdicts of the international courts of London or of the same Stockholm will be issued? Yes, the West is simply afraid to create such a precedent - too many of its countries have plundered Russia and the USSR for centuries!
But to use the "golden" question in the process of negotiating with Tokyo, Moscow is not just worth it, but is absolutely necessary. It is clear that when Putin himself tries to voice claims of this kind, the Japanese side is likely to forgive, “turn on the fool”: “What is such a soliot? My do not know, my do not understand! " Nevertheless, it is necessary to “crush” them with these stolen millions, at least with the same persistence with which the Japanese side continues to repeat about the “lost northern territories”. “Give the islands back!” “First return the gold!” Moreover, neither Kolchakovo nor Semenovskoy gold is far from exhausting our claims against Japan even for the described historical period.
The truth, in truth, is the fact that Russia never mentioned that during the Civil War Japan acted in relation to our country not only as a robber and swindler, but also as an interventionist and invader. In Japan itself these events are called the Siberian Expedition ... The “expedition” is good - with the forces of 11 divisions! 70 thousand Japanese "bayonets" pressed into our land - with research, obviously, goals. Three thousand of those, by the way, found her a well-deserved death at the hands of her defenders. But how many Russian people did they kill ?! And they, by the way, were also robbed “from the bottom of their hearts” - more than 2 thousand railway wagons and more than three hundred river and sea vessels were stolen only in Manchuria. Yes, only one illegal catch of fish by the Japanese during this period brought, as it was later calculated, Russia's losses by 4 and a half million rubles in gold!
But okay - they just robbed. In my opinion, the authorities of Russia have either completely forgotten or deliberately ignored the fact that the Japanese staged the real “Siberian Khatyn” - on March 22, 1919, several hundred inhabitants of the village of Ivanovka were destroyed by their warriors and the village itself was burned to the ground! And this is far from an isolated case. The Japanese invaders carried out such "purges" and intimidation actions in many villages and villages of the Amur region. By the way, members of the All-Japan Association of Former Prisoners of War come to Ivanovo, by the way, on a regular basis. This year the tragedy marks exactly one hundred years - so maybe Vladimir Vladimirovich should invite Mr. Shinzo Abe personally to the event? May she repent too! It’s quite possible to do without the ritual seppuka for the prime minister - but talking about the fact that Russia of Japan “should” be definitely worth ending with!
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