Precious treasures found during the construction of the Moscow metro

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

During the construction of the metro in such a large historical city as Moscow, it was realistic to hope that you would find many artifacts. And so it happened: large-scale work on the construction of tunnels and the construction of underground lobbies helped archaeologists to make many interesting discoveries and learn more about the history of ancient Moscow. It often happened that workers found artifacts by accident, and it was all the more fun to study them.

Oprichnina palace

For a long time historians have been in continuous debate about where exactly the palace was, in which Ivan IV settled during the oprichnina. It was known that the palace building had burned down, but the scientists had at their disposal a written mention of the German oprichnik Heinrich Staden that the grounds in front of the palace were covered with light sand, and that it was located across the Neglinka River.

During the Soviet years, when laying a metro tunnel under Mokhovaya Street, the same layer of light river sand was discovered. Such sand was not typical for the damp terrain of the center of Moscow, and it became immediately clear that it was here that the same Oprichnaya Palace was located.

Icon of the "porcelain king"

From the memoirs of the metro builders, we know about an interesting story that happened during the construction of the Prospekt Mira metro station. Once an old man came to the employees and said that before the revolution he had worked for Kuznetsov, the owner of the famous porcelain factories, and once the owner allegedly gave him an old icon and asked him to hide it well. The clerk said that he made an underground cache here, and now he is worried about the relic. The Komsomol metro builders found the icon, but did not carry it to the police, but gave it to the old man. In gratitude, the pensioner assured the young people that he would order them a prayer for health.

The house fell through the ground?

Perhaps the most interesting and mysterious find is a small red brick house that workers discovered in 1985, when they were building the Borovitskaya metro station. The ancient walls with well-preserved windows were located about six meters deep. Furniture and household items have survived inside the building.

According to rumors, the authorities wanted to set up a museum within the ancient walls of the house they found (it did not interfere with the construction of the tunnel), but the metro workers began to complain that next to the strange building they constantly feel physical ailment and in general they somehow feel uncomfortable. As a result, the house had to be dismantled.

Archaeologists who have studied the find have come to the conclusion that the building is about five centuries old. The reasons why it fell to such a depth have not been established.

If we ignore superstitious fantasies, the most logical version seems to be that some natural cataclysm occurred in this place many years ago (for example, a karst sinkhole), as a result of which a void formed under the house, absorbing it.

Unexploded shell

Several years ago, while laying a tunnel on a new metro line in the area of Michurinsky Prospect, a shell from the Great Patriotic War was accidentally discovered.

The builders decided to stop work and resumed digging the tunnel only after the sappers had neutralized the find. The dangerous projectile was immediately disposed of at the MIA training ground.

Traces of battles

In the late 1960s, during the construction of the Ploschad Nogina station (now Kitay-Gorod), large quantities of military equipment, stove tiles, leather shoes, as well as bone and clay products, including toys, were found in the pit.

An iron helmet with silver embossed notching was also found nearby. It was pierced with a heavy sharp object (apparently, a saber), and historians came to the conclusion that the owner of the helmet died in the battle of 1612, during the time of Minin and Pozharsky.

Ancient treasure

During the construction of the subway, many hiding places were discovered, made by Muscovites in the Middle Ages, and especially, in troubled times. For example, a treasure was found in the Park Kultury metro area - half a thousand silver coins with images of Russian tsars. Apparently, it was buried during the rifle riots that took place in the 17th century.

During the construction of the Tretyakovskaya station, which took place in an area associated with the history of the Moscow Streletsky settlements, silver coins were also found, moreover, in even greater quantities, and they were also attributed to the period of the Strelets rebellion. An old pot of coins from the same period was found during the construction of a tunnel near the neighboring station - "Novokuznetskaya".

Most often, such treasures were hidden by Muscovites of past centuries in clay or metal vessels, as well as in wooden capsules with a narrow neck. Apparently, these containers were for our ancestors something like piggy banks.

Streets in multiple layers

When they built the Gorkovskaya metro station (now Tverskaya) and dug the underground passage to the Pushkinskaya station, the finds turned out to be especially interesting. 6-7 centuries ago, there was a road to Tver, along which people from Tver and Novgorod settled. Artifacts of the last centuries were found under the asphalt - the remains of wooden buildings, four tiers of wooden pavements of the 15th - 17th centuries (now this is the district of the Izvestia editorial office). Tver pavements looked like this: oak logs were laid longitudinally, and on top of them were densely covered with pine logs, as well as boards.

By the way, during the construction of the subway, archaeologists actively collaborated with workers and engineers. They gave the metro builders valuable advice, talked about the peculiarities of the soil, and also tried to make sure that not a single accidentally found artifact was left unattended. In places with a particularly rich history, archaeologists carried out preliminary research, and only then the workers began to build the metro.