One ‘Bloody Sunday’ in 1905, peaceful protesters were brutally gunned down by the Imperial Guards of Russia’s final Emperor, Nicholas II, triggering the dramatic descent of Russia‘s economic and military power.
Public tolerance of Russian autocracy had exhausted, resulting in Siberian civil war.
With the Red Army in pursuit, Admiral Alexander Kolchak heisted the Czar’s treasure and made a desperate escape for the hills in a 100 tonne locomotive.
Triumph, however, was short lived, as the train derailed and plummeted into the world’s deepest fresh water body, Siberia’s Lake Baikal, carrying 1,600 tonnes of gold worth billions of dollars, never to be seen again.
Long have explorers searched the area for the treasure, and when ammunition boxes and railway wagons were found last year, dating to the civil war, many an adventurers’ eyebrow was raised in interest.
One group of fairly affluent eyebrows, belonging to the Science Academy, recently took the plunge in mini submarines, where they made an eye-popping discovery – thousands of shiny objects resembling gold bullions, sitting 400 metres below the lake’s surface.
The fragile lake basin proved too ticklish to grab the loot, however the academy believe they have pinpointed its exact location. And with the mission incomplete, hope has flung into the hearts of those with less fortunate eyebrows. The game, as they say, is a foot.
One brave attempt has since been made.
Boisterously quoting Aragorn from The Two Towers, “there is always hope”, 53 year old bankrupt Siberian truck driver Hank Volkoff dived headlong towards the lake’s bottom. Armed with plastic bags, a can of compressed nitrogen, a rusty metal claw and a torch, Hank tied several small boulders to his feet before taking the quixotic plunge.
He was never seen again.
There are rumours, however, of a benighted wealthy Russian, prancing about the forest with the bends, arousing wild animals with the sounds of clinking metal.
Hank you tool