Well, who among us as a child did not dream of searching and finding treasures? Some are so keen on this idea that they carry it throughout their lives and engage in an exciting hobby - treasure hunting. This is quite a difficult task, not much like relaxation, and it is not crowned with success every time. But the adrenaline of unearthing a new find is incomparable. If you have been dreaming about this for a long time, then we will help you figure out how to find the treasure.

Finding treasure is a very difficult thing. First of all, remember – luck and luck again. It is this fickle sister who, sometimes, will turn a beginner who goes out on a search for the first time into a lucky one, while avoiding an experienced treasure hunter. Accordingly, if you have firmly decided to take up this matter, it is quite clear that you will have a bunch of pressing questions - where to look, how to look, when to look, etc. Let’s look at the points:

• where to look. The answer is very simple - in the places where the treasure is supposed to be located. It is easy to learn about these places from ancient legends, stories and ordinary logical judgments. You can do this - choose an old village in mind, appease its very elderly resident (with the help of alcohol), and you will hear many legends about treasures and burials of treasures. Villages like these are an ideal place to search for ancient, most valuable treasures. However, there is a simplified version - people’s favorite vacation spots. These are various beaches, forest clearings, etc. Vacationers with alcohol could probably lose something valuable, lose sight of it, and sometimes the sea itself washes valuable things ashore.
• how to search. Here you have a choice - you can use auxiliary tools - metal detectors, or start searching empty-handed. But for the second option, you need to be more or less sure of the presence of a find, otherwise there is a high probability of wasting time.
• when to look. Well, it’s very simple here - to search you need to choose calm, cool, but not rainy weather. It is best at the beginning of summer and at the beginning - at the end of autumn.

Prayer to find treasure

As already mentioned, luck plays a big role in treasure hunting. Therefore, and for a number of other reasons (to calm the forces guarding the treasure, to protect one’s own soul), various customs and conspiracies have become so popular among treasure hunters. Everyone has their own, and experienced comrades will not share with you. For example, there is a well-known custom of burying various objects in the ground - food, drinks, etc. to appease the earthly spirit, or on the principle of compensation in case of a successful search. Christians have their own patrons of treasure hunting among the saints - St. John and the Apostle Gold.

The prayer for a successful and safe search sounds like this:

Where were the treasures hidden?

In order for the treasure hunt to be successful, it is necessary to find out exactly the places where they most often hid their savings in ancient times. First of all, look at your home, no matter how paradoxical it may sound. There are many stories about finding old money, gold and coins in the attic, in the closet, in an abandoned barn and basement, in old chests or hiding places under the floor, especially if your home is more than fifty years old. Perhaps your great-great-grandmothers and great-great-grandfathers tried to hide their wealth using this very method.

Let's return to the topic of old villages. It can be assumed that most often villagers and peasants in the old days buried money in the ground. And so that the loosened earth did not attract attention, and it was dangerous to place the treasure too far away due to the possibility of its loss, they buried jewelry and coins in the yard and vegetable garden. Therefore, you can check such places near abandoned, old-built houses and territories.

More recently, the beginning of the 19th century, during the period of dispossession, it became popular to hide savings in a well. However, searching there, especially if the water intake site is made of wood, is terribly dangerous, you may fail, and there is a risk of the structure collapsing. Therefore, without skill and preparation, and if the place is unreliable, you should not climb there.

Well, the most common places are, of course, beaches, forest glades and other natural areas, but only with a corresponding history.

But still, no matter how much you want to find treasures, avoid disturbing the peace of old graves, mounds and other historical places. Not only can you incur criminal liability for this, there is a high probability of getting yourself into trouble.

Believe the old legend, and perhaps luck will smile on you.

How to find treasure without a metal detector

The age of modern technology has made treasure hunting much easier; you just need to arm yourself with such a useful thing as a metal detector and simply scan surfaces for the presence of the necessary metals. But how romantic it is to conduct excavations without a metal detector, and it’s not always possible to use one.

Finding treasure without a metal detector is not easy, but terribly interesting. Here you need to rely on your eyes, attentiveness and logic. First of all, you need to pay special attention to the time and place of searches - it is best to search in spring and autumn, after rain - the soil will become loose, easy to dig, and water will slightly wash away the top layer of soil. You need to go on a search to ancient places mentioned in legends, where the likelihood of a successful search is higher. When you arrive at the site, pay attention to the surface; the presence of fragments of ceramics and clay, bricks indicates the possible location of the find.

You can dig in several ways - simply dig a hole or trench, or lay holes - remove the soil layer by layer and at a certain distance. This is very hard work, but it significantly increases the chance of being found. If during your search you come across a coin or something like that, or some kind of shard, you are on the right path, don’t stop. It would be advisable to dig through the entire area using the pit method to search for even greater finds.

And most importantly, don’t forget to clean up after yourself and put the search area in order after the excavation in any case!

Treasure Hunter's Day in Russia is celebrated at the end of May, but you can search for them all year round. For the luckiest ones - instructions from Prospekt Mira.

What's happened?

You have found a treasure and don’t know what to do with it - whether you can keep it and whether you will be punished for this.

What is a treasure?

Is a gold watch found in the sand on the beach also a treasure?

No, the watch will be considered a “find.” Unlike a find, which can be any found thing, a treasure is only specially hidden valuable objects or money that does not have an owner. As a rule, finds have an owner - you just have to look for him too.

So what to do if you find a treasure?

Law enforcement agencies are responsible for the safety of treasures, so lawyers advise the finder to contact the nearest police station, having first photographed the find. The items found must be submitted according to the inventory and a treasure discovery report must be obtained from the police. In order for the document to have legal force, it is worth enlisting the support of three witnesses who will confirm that you found the treasure. You can also contact the local history museum, which will conduct an examination of the found items.

Photo: pixabay.com

Who will get the treasure?

The found treasure is divided in half between the finder and the owner of the land on which it was discovered. However, if the treasure has historical value, it must be given to the state - but if you find it on your plot of land, you can count on compensation of half the cost of the find.

If you found a treasure on someone else’s land, but first received permission from the owner to search, then divide the compensation equally with him: 25% of the amount of the treasure to the finder, 25% to the owner of the site (if there are several of both, then the compensation is distributed between by all treasure hunters and owners).

But anyone who carried out excavations without the permission of the owner of the site or real estate loses the right to compensation - only the owner will receive it.

Screenshot: Youtube.com

Is it easy to get compensation?

For those who handed over the treasure to the state, receiving compensation can turn into a real headache, as follows from an article in the Kommersant-Dengi magazine. For example, a resident of a village in the Chita region sought compensation for several years. He handed over the gold coins he found in 2007 to the museum; an examination estimated their value at 300 thousand rubles.

After this, the pot of coins lay in the museum for three years - the state was in no hurry to register them as its property, as well as pay compensation. As a result, with the help of lawyers, the treasure was returned to the village resident (who found the coins) and the administration of the rural settlement (the owner of the land).

Will I have to pay taxes on the treasure?

Compensation for the treasure will, in fact, be a reward, and there is no need to pay tax on it (Article 217 of the Tax Code). It’s another matter if the treasure does not have historical value and becomes the property of the finder - you will have to pay personal income tax (in most cases - 13%).

What happens if you don’t report the discovery of a treasure?

IN Soviet times Criminal liability was provided for concealing treasure from the state. Currently there is no such article in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The legislation only states that a treasure of historical value must be transferred to the state. If a person does not do this, then the find will be confiscated through the court, and the treasure hunter will be deprived of the right to a reward.

How often are treasures found?

According to Soviet statistics, from 1977 to 1989. The State Repository of Precious Metals and Stones (Gokhran) annually received 40–50 kilograms of gold coins alone from the discovered caches.

Until 1991, an average of 90 treasures per year were given to the state (then compensation was 25%). For example, in 1989 - 92 treasures, valued at 752 thousand Soviet rubles, in 1990 - 38 treasures (760 thousand). In the subsequent post-Soviet 20 years - not a single one. Gokhran explained this precisely by the abolition of criminal liability for hiding treasures, as a result of which treasure hunters sold their finds not to the state, but to banks, antique dealers and collectors.

In 2010, Forbes wrote that reports of large treasures found in Russia appear on average once every six months. The magazine noted that in fact, discoveries occur much more often, just not all of them are reported. Treasure hunting websites say that small valuable items are found every week in the country.

Where are treasures found?

The chance of finding treasure naturally increases in old settlements and areas rich in historical events - so the European part of Russia wins over Siberia in this regard. Moreover, the researchers calculated that people more often hid their property in difficult times: in the Moscow region, for example, coins from the Time of Troubles (early 17th century) and the first third of the 20th century were discovered most often.

Even though Russia is not located on one of the Caribbean islands, where pirates hid numerous treasures during their heyday, residents still sometimes wonder what to do legally if they find treasure in Russia. Can I take it for myself? Should it be shared with the state and many other factors worry the lucky ones who have found something interesting. It is the question of what to do if you find a treasure in Russia, even if accidentally on your own property, that is central to the content of this article.

Treasure concept

Before directly determining what to do if you find a treasure, you should understand what Russian legislation means by this word. There are a number of fine lines here, since it is simply possible to detect various types property. However, not all of them can be equated to treasures. Now its official definition means money or various valuables buried in the ground or otherwise hidden from detection, the owner of which cannot be identified or he has completely lost any rights to this property.

But at the same time, you need to keep in mind that any treasure found may fall under various types, for example, historical and cultural, so the question of what to do, if a person has found a treasure, according to the law of the Russian Federation, can vary markedly, based on the situation.

Legislative framework

Even if one of the main childhood dreams was to find a huge chest of gold that was once buried in the ground, you should not plunge into these dreams at all if your cherished desire did come true. There are certain rules and laws that a person must rely on when he wonders what to do according to the law. If you find a treasure, you’ve done well, but this does not mean that an ordinary person can take all the money for himself.

Even though the treasure itself is enshrined in Article 233 of the country’s Civil Code, the rules on what to do with it are enshrined in completely different acts. On at the moment the country has a special Instruction on Treasures, which was approved by the USSR Ministry of Finance in 1984, as well as more modern version Treasure Hunting Law.

Discovery of treasure on someone else's property

As mentioned earlier, not everyone knows what to do if they find a treasure. Much depends on numerous nuances. One of the most important is the fact on whose lands it was discovered. It should be taken into account that, despite the fact that the official owner of it is the one on whose lands the treasure was directly buried, he may still need to share it with the person who directly made the discovery.

In this case, before the start of the excavation, he must obtain permission from the owner to search for the treasure. If such an agreement was concluded in advance, then the person who found the treasure and the owner of the land divide everything based on the shares specified in the agreement or in equal shares. When there is no such agreement, then all the treasures become the property of the owner of the site.

A complete exception to this rule is one factor - these provisions do not fully apply to those persons who found treasure as a result of the performance of their labor or official duties. For example, service employees were excavating pipes and in the process of their activities came across a treasure. Based on such a situation, they will not be able to receive any share.

Discovery of treasure on your own property

When the question arises about what to do if you find a treasure on your site, then the only positive factor is that the reward received does not need to be shared with the owner of the land, since the seeker is the owner.

However, in this case, you must act in accordance with the law, namely, transfer the found treasures to the state. If it is not classified as a historical and cultural heritage, then the bonus received will be 50%, which is calculated directly from the cost of what was found.

Historical and cultural heritage

Legislation on treasures becomes extremely important in cases where a find may have historical and cultural value. Such treasures must be handed over to the police or prosecutor's office. Before doing this, it is advisable to take several clear photographs of what was found and several witnesses who will confirm the fact that a person found the treasure.

When contacting the competent authorities, they must record the location of the treasure and make an inventory of the items found in order to subsequently prevent items from being lost from it. The state directly appoints an expert, who decides whether the found treasures should become the property of the country and its historical and cultural fund.

Taxation

Although the official question of what to do if you find a treasure is limited to the fact that it should be taken to the police, the question of taxation for the income received as a result has not been fully resolved. At the moment there are 2 options for the development of events:

Responsibility

Currently, at the legislative level, there is no criminal liability for persons who have found a treasure, items in which may have historical and cultural value. Therefore, simple treasures can be hidden from the police and slowly sold off. However, if the fact of its discovery is nevertheless revealed, then through the court it can be reclaimed from the finder, declaring him an unscrupulous owner. However, even in such a situation they cannot put him in prison.

A completely different situation exists with valuable treasures. If they are not handed over on time, but are deliberately appropriated, then the person who finds it may be declared a criminal who will be convicted under Article 164 of the Criminal Code, which provides punishment for persons who have committed theft of items of particular value to the state.

All treasures, according to the old instructions, must be stored with the tax authorities. However, according to the new rules, internal affairs bodies can also deal with them.

Places where it is prohibited to look for treasures

There are a number of places in Russia in which you should never look for treasures unless a person wants to be condemned as a “black archaeologist.” These sites include those that have archaeological significance.

At the moment, if during the digging of valuables there is a possibility of damaging cultural monuments, natural objects protected by the state or other objects, then the person can be prosecuted with a significant fine or even imprisonment for up to 5 years.

Conclusion

Over the past few years, several very significant treasures have been discovered around the world. Now created for this large number technologies that make searching easier. However, a tendency has also been noticed when their searches are not at all happy accidents, as was previously the case, but rather the purposeful work of many people who entered into an agreement.

However, despite this, legislation in the field of treasure hunting has remained in one place for many years, not only in Russian Federation, but also in many other countries, where the only difference is the interest that can be received.

It is the desire of every metal detector owner to find treasure. But the hope for the latter becomes more and more transparent with every nail, plug or sleeve found. But how to find the treasure and not pass by it?

How to find a treasure?

First you need to understand and imagine what you need to look for. If a metal detector is looking for metal, it knows what it should look for: iron, silver, gold, copper, brass, zinc, etc. In other words, he is not looking for wood, glass, stones or plastic. You have the same task, learn to imagine the subject of your search.
Imagine the size, weight, filling, metal, vessel in which the treasure was hidden. You immediately need to throw out of your head the pictures from childhood where all the treasures are of enormous size and in chests with large padlocks.
It looks more like a whole treasury than the hidden goods of a wealthy person. As a rule, bookmarks were made in dishes: clay pots, cast iron pots, basins, jars, jugs, tin boxes. The container for the treasure depends on the period of the stash, the size of the treasure, and what the person hiding had on hand.

How to find a treasure place?

If you have decided what is hidden, you need to go to the culprit of the treasure, the one who hid it. Most of the bookmarks were made in turbulent times: raids, wars, revolutions. Such periods can always be determined in history for a particular area. But it is worth emphasizing the simply forgotten bookmark safes made before the advent of banks. All these bookmarks have one thing in common: they were made by a man with money, someone who had something to hide. He hid what he had acquired either from external danger or from the eyes of poor neighbors. As a rule, such a person turned out to be the owner of a local store, landowner, innkeeper, miller, clergyman, average merchant or trader. Everyone who was much richer took all their goods with them away from danger because they had the opportunity.

Let's draw our first conclusions. This means that the one who hid it did not have the opportunity to leave the house, but wanted to protect what he had acquired from robbers, thieves or enemy troops. That means he hid it in the area where he lived. Such places are often available. Taverns, inns, mills and churches are always marked on maps, but shops, factories or merchants' houses are almost never found on maps.

The search area for treasures depends on the area. If this is a farm on the outskirts and it was also an inn or tavern, then there is no point in looking far. A bookmark should always be under the watchful eye of the person who made it. This is due to the fear of the treasure owner. He hid it in fear, there is a fear that someone saw it, a fear that someone will reveal his secret place, a fear that the treasure is no longer there. And with all these fears, he sleeps poorly at night, often visits that place, often checks to see if everything is okay. From this comes the second conclusion: the bookmark was made nearby. If the earth guarded the good itself, then the owner guarded the place itself.

Also, laying was done in barns, wells and even under doghouses; this is reminiscent of the plot of Andersen’s famous fairy tale “Flint”. here according to logic: the earth keeps the treasure, and the dog guards the place.

When you buy a metal detector, one of the main questions you have is: “Where to look for treasure”? Those. you need places for digging where you could use your metal detector. Well, of course, I would like to find something.

There are so many sources or search techniques.
Let's look at this issue.

Where could the treasure be located?

First, let's answer the question of where the treasure could be located.

One of these places is a village, village (settlement).
To be more specific, the treasure could be buried in the house - in the basement, or in your own barn, or in the garden. It could be where the fence is. (there are many cases where treasure was found under a fence post).
It could also be a ravine, near a populated area or a house.

Another place - fair. Of course, fairs were located near populated areas.
They traded at the fair... And in the place where the building, or shop, or tray was located, coins were buried.
There are also many cases of treasures being found on the site of former fairs.

Place of the inn, or next to the inn.
The tavern was usually located at the intersection of roads. Bookmarks were also often found here.

Tract. There are also treasures along the tract. True, all finds are more random in nature. But this does not exclude searching in these places.

Choosing a spot to dig

Thus, as we previously examined potential places where treasures could be located, it is worth paying attention to former villages (villages), taverns, hamlets, simply road intersections and old highways.

Those. we need to use the old map. Determine where the settlements were and check them.
This method of determining the place where to look for treasure can be said to be “direct”. And many people know about him. And that’s exactly what they do.

Thus, for treasure hunt we need old maps!

Take the old card. You arrive at the site of the former village (village). Localize the place where she was. Next, search with a metal detector.
But since many people use it, you may not be the first in this place.

However, there are limitations to this method. The fact is that maps began to be drawn up from the time of Peter I. Ie. We will not be able to capture an earlier period using this method.

Google Maps for finding treasure locations

Google Map allows you to view territories from space. These are pictures of the planet from space. What can you see special in such photographs?
Glades in the forest.
Those. a place cleared of trees and surrounded by them. But the forest is quickly taking over new areas. Those. Most likely the clearing is of artificial origin. And this is a potential method for searching.
Black earth.
Sometimes you can see black spots on the plowed ground. This is what allows us to conclude that there was once a settlement in this place. Those. this also needs to be checked.

This method allows you to identify potential places to search for treasure, and it does not have the same disadvantage as maps; it does not have a time limit when the map was compiled. Those. You can find sites of settlements earlier than 1700.

Messages from local residents

The best source of information is reports from local residents about potential places to look for treasures. This is exactly what our experience shows.
They talk about events that are often not described anywhere or are not reflected in maps. But Google's methods are not suitable, because... there is no arable land, or there has been no forest for a long time, or the settlement is so small that you simply won’t notice it from space, or there has never been anything there at all (settled area, fair, etc.)
This is the most valuable information, and it must be checked.

Other methods for determining potential treasure locations

Here we will talk about several options for finding places. They may be good or bad, but they exist, are used by search engines, and produce finds.

• Checking all fields

Quite a labor-intensive search.

• Search in the forest

When searching in the forest, certain markers of human activity are used

• presence of mounds
• presence of traces of foundation
• presence of traces of fences
• presence of traces of buildings
• checking all clearings in the forest for the presence of metal
• Using the earth's spectral lines.

The curvature of the lines allows us to conclude that their change is caused by some kind of anomaly. Not necessarily a treasure. But it's possible.

• Studying the soil map
• Studying the forest map
• Study of river banks
• Study of ravine edges

A ravine is often a spring. There could be a settlement near the water.

Another source for determining where to search

Another source for determining the location of the search for treasure is evidence of historical events. These are places of battles, escape routes, etc.

It is clear that when leaving, those who carried valuables had to hide them just in case.
Accordingly, these are places along the escape routes.
These are also fords where these valuables were lost.

How to look for treasure?

We considered the question of where to look for treasure. But the question remains: how to look for it. The fact is that when you walk around with a metal detector, you receive different signals to the device. But which ones are worth digging for? Usually they dig all the colored signals.
But for a treasure, a color signal is not at all necessary.
What is a treasure?
That's a lot of coins. Those. This is a big goal. Accordingly, when searching for treasure, you need to dig for all large signals. Both black and colored.
If you have a more or less modern village, then you will dig with plows and buckets. But if it’s old, then there will be more interesting finds.

When you go out into a plowed field where there was a village before, you receive many small signals from coins. (From plowed treasures, or just lost items). It’s possible (and most likely so) that a whole army of search engines came before you and collected all the small useful signals. But, as we said above, a treasure is a large signal and not always colored. Accordingly, there is a chance to find treasure that the plow did not reach. In this case, you need to dig for all major signals.