Kolchak's GOLD CAN BE RETURNED! Japan grabbed the gold reserve of the Russian Empire, and now wants the Kuril Islands

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

Recently, Maria Zakharova announced that Russia could raise the issue of the tons of tsarist gold remaining in Japan.

“This question,” Zakharova clarified, “was repeatedly raised on the basis of available materials to the Japanese side through diplomatic channels. In response, it was explained that there are no Russian valuables in Japan to be returned. Gold, we were told, was partially returned and partially used by the interested parties.

But how did our gold end up in Japan?

Before the revolution, the gold reserve of tsarist Russia was huge - 1337 tons. Apart from the 300 tons that were in circulation in the form of gold coins.

Only the USA had more in their storerooms. After the outbreak of war with Germany, the tsarist government ordered to send the country's gold reserves to the rear, dividing it between Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan.

When the Civil War broke out, the tsarist gold was in the hands of the Bolsheviks. But on August 7, 1918, a detachment of Colonel Kappel, having taken Kazan by storm, captured all the "Kazan" gold - 507 tons. Kappel reported in a telegram: “The trophies cannot be counted, the gold reserve of Russia in 650 million has been seized …”.

In addition, from the Kazan part of the gold reserve of the Russian Empire, whites got 100 million rubles in credit marks, platinum bars and other valuables. Soon the treasure was in Omsk, at Kolchak. He promised to preserve the gold reserves of the empire, but his army was in dire need of weapons, and they could only be purchased abroad.

Kolchak sent gold to Vladivostok (out of four echelons, three reached, one was captured and plundered by Ataman Semyonov), where their contents were loaded into the basements of the local branch of the State Bank, and from there it was sent abroad as collateral against loans in order to receive weapons. Most of the gold went to Japan, where Yokohama Haste Bank became Kolchak's main counterparty. However, having received gold, the Japanese did not supply weapons to Kolchak.

And the gold received as a pledge was not returned. Recently, documents confirming the facts of transactions with the Japanese were found in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow. We are talking about two loan agreements between the Japanese banking syndicate headed by Yokohama Hurry Bank and the representative of the State Bank of Russia in Tokyo Shchekin, acting on behalf of the Omsk government. These were agreements at the interstate level for the manufacture of weapons by a Japanese military factory for Kolchak's army. The total value of the gold received by the Japanese side from the Kolchak administration in the form of a pledge for the promised arms deliveries amounted to 54 and a half million gold rubles.

This information then leaked even to the Japanese press. “Yesterday, Russian gold in the amount of 10 million yen arrived in the city of Tsuruga on account of a loan to the Omsk government in the amount of 30 million yen,” the newspaper Toke Niti Niti reported on November 3, 1919. Meanwhile, Kolchak's army began to retreat under the blows of the Red Army.

Kolchak was taken prisoner near Irkutsk and was shot by the Bolsheviks. The Japanese cynically took advantage of this in order not to make deliveries and not to return the gold pledged to them. But that's not all … The remains of gold, not yet sent abroad, were kept in the branch of the State Bank in Vladivostok.

On the night of January 29-30, 1920, a landing from the Japanese cruiser "Hizen" cordoned off the territory, samurai armed to the teeth burst into the bank. The operation was commanded by Japanese intelligence colonel Rokuro Izome. And he was helped by the Kolchak general, Sergei Rozanov, who had become a traitor, dressed in a Japanese uniform. The Japanese loaded about 55 tons of Russian gold into the holds of their cruiser. In fact, they simply stole this gold.

But that was not all. Gold passed into the hands of the Japanese in other ways. So, in November 1920, the chief of the rear of Kolchak's army, General Petrov, handed over 22 boxes of gold for "temporary storage" to the head of the Japanese occupation military administration in Transbaikalia and Manchuria to the Japanese colonel Rokuro Izome.

In February 1920, the military foreman of the Ussuriysk Cossack army handed over to the commander of the 30th Japanese infantry regiment Colonel Servant for safekeeping two boxes and five bags of gold from 38 poods of gold confiscated by the White Guards in the Khabarovsk office of the State Bank. 33 boxes of gold were handed over to the Japanese side in March 1920 and placed at the Chosen Bank branch in Osaka.

There are also supporting documents - the minutes of the Tokyo District Court dated March 9, 1925.