Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Omsk

The Trans-Siberian Railway is actually a network of rail lines connecting most of the territory of the Russian Federation, from Moscow to Vladivostok in the Pacific Ocean, with a total length of 9289 kilometers, making it the longest railway in the world. It passes through eight time zones and it takes eight days to cover its entire length. It currently connects with other lines that penetrate Mongolia, China and North Korea, making it a logistics network of great importance for a wide area of the planet. The Moscow-Vladivostok route is the third longest in the world after Moscow- Pyongyang (10267 KM) and Kiev-Vladivostok (11085 km); in any case, these two routes use the trans-Siberian basic network mentioned before so that they are actually simple extensions of it.

The main route thus begins in Moscow and runs from Yaroslavl through the cities of Omsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Chita, Khabarovsk and then Vladivostok, traveling through most of southern Siberia. In Chita it connects with the Trans-Manchurian Railway.

The railway was built between 1891 and 1916 under the supervision of officials of the Tsars Aleksandr III and his son Nicholas II.

The reasons for the enormous investment and effort that its construction represented was, on the one hand, to promote the economic and population development of Siberia, a region that had few internal links and with the rest of the country. In fact, outside the Great Siberian Route there were no other suitable roads and only the rivers that cross the region could be used to travel the enormous extension, through which it is only possible to navigate for five months a year, since in winter their surface freezes, and allows to travel on them in sledges on horseback but only conditionally.

The second important cause for the construction of the route was strategic and military. The extreme east of the huge Russian empire was disconnected from the European zone, home to the main garrisons with serious problems in mobilizing troops and supplies in the former region, which was demonstrated by the Russo-Japanese War before the First World War.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the allied powers that had fought against the central powers, basically Germany and Austria-Hungary, landed the Czechoslovak Legion and other related forces to participate in the Russian Civil War against the Bolsheviks and supporting the White Army and Admiral Kolchak's Omsk-based government, as narrated in earlier chapters of this book. Foreign participation was eventually weakened by the Bolshevik guerrillas who blew up bridges and railway sections, but anyway, during the duration of the fight, the Trans-Siberian was a vital artery of the White Army. In particular, the Czechoslovak Legion controlled large areas of Russian territory with artillery trains, consisting of shallow wagons with machine-gun nests and cannons served by gunners located between cargo vans. With the fall of the Russian Empire this legion became one of the main organized forces opposing the Red Army until they had to retreat and board the ships in Vladivostok.

The six members of the group organized by the Bluthund Community boarded the Trans-Siberian in Moscow, after a direct Aeroflot flight from New York. Then they separated into groups of two to avoid drawing attention to them from possible spies and informants of the Russian regime who would undoubtedly appear once they touched Russian territory. A large group of six people would attract more attention than small groups of suspected tourists. On the other hand they acquired Russian clothes so that the foreign attire did not become a flash light that drew attention to them; the general idea was to pass by tourists, of which there were many in the Trans-Siberian, but the in the least conspicuous possible way. Thus von Eichenberg and Suzuki traveled in adjoining seats, as did Irina and Igor Fiodorov and Jack Berglund and Boris Demidov. Each pair was separated from the rest by rows of seats but always in full view of all of them. When they descended on a station they made brief contact with each other as tourists would in a strange country. The general idea was to merge with the rest of the passage and go as unnoticed as possible.

At the Nizhny Novgorod, Kirov, Perm and Yekaterinburg stations the travelers went down to stretch their legs and enjoy the fresh air, taking care not to make excessive contact between the different groups so as not to encourage suspicions. By the time they reached the last of the mentioned stations, a little more than a day's journey had passed. They had already decided in the planning of the trip before leaving New York that at the next stop, the city of Omsk, they would get off the train and spend some time looking for clues that could guide them in the successive stages, given the key role that that city had played in all the drama of Admiral Kolchak's period.

Indeed, they got off the train and went to look for individual rooms in a nearby hotel. As the accommodation did not have enough free rooms, Jack Berglund and Dieter von Eichenberg had to share theirs.

Omsk is located 2676 km from Moscow and the contrast between the two cities is great. This city is the administrative center of the Omsk Oblast region in southwestern Siberia. With a population of over a million inhabitants, it is the second Russian city east of the Ural Mountains, and is an essential transport node for its Trans-Siberian Railway and its river station on the Irtysh River.

During the imperial era the city served as the seat of the Governor of Eastern Siberia and afterwards the General Governor of the Steppes. As stated in previous chapters it was the capital of the Russian anti-Bolshevik state during the civil war between 1918 and 1920, and was the seat of the imperial gold reserves.

In 1918 all the anti-Bolshevik groups had formed a Directory of an undefined tendency which offered Kolchak the post of Minister of Defense. The role of the Allied forces -including English, French, and American soldiers led by the British General Alfred Knox- who had come to back Russia in World War I but then joined the cause against the Communists in the civil war was decisive. A military coup supported by Knox brought down the Directory and established a dictatorship led by Kolchak. The tyrannical government supported by the Cossacks ended up generating hatred from the peasantry and losing the support of the allies.

A revolt in late 1918 of leftists culminated in the massacre of 500 revolutionaries at the hands of the Cossacks and Czechoslovaks who supported Kolchak.

The group led by Jack Berglund and made up of the members of the mission nicknamed "Imperial Diadem" or simply Diadem visited a large monument dating from the Soviet era that commemorated this uprising on a corner of Lenina and Broz Tito streets. During their visit to the city of Omsk in search of signs, they then visited the Omsk Regional Archive, just at Broz Tito Street No. 3, in which the Kolchak headquarters had been operating at the time under the command of the Russian government, but nothing could be found there that would be useful for their research. A statue of Kolchak erected in 2012 stands on the corner of this building, and visitors decided to have lunch at a restaurant called Kolchak in front of the statue.

In the afternoon they rented a car and went to a hamlet called Taiga, where according to versions of the time the treasure had been buried, but in conversations with local residents they found out that countless excavations made by treasure hunters of all nationalities had given a negative result.

Returning to Omsk, Taro Suzuki approached Jack Berglund, covertly indicating a couple of men who were in a corner and who, looking at the American in their direction, pretended to be reading two separate newspapers.

"They have been following us since we returned from Taiga." Whispered the Japanese.

“Well, let's go back to the hotel and analyze the situation there.”