The expert explained why Romania will be forced to give gold to Russia: it owes millions of dollars

Foreign opponents are once again trying to test Russia “weakly.” Now they needed some gold. In the amount of 91.5 tons.

European “champions of justice” issued a document “on the return of Romanian national treasures illegally appropriated by Russia”: “The European Parliament calls on the Russian Federation to fully return to Romania the remaining part of the national treasure of Romania sent to Russia for safekeeping in 1916 and 1917…”

Now is the time to recall this “golden-shimmering” story that began more than a century ago.

During the 1st World War, royal Romania “ran” from one warring side to another. At first, the Romanians were “friends” with Germany and Austria-Hungary. However, after the defeat inflicted on the army of Emperor Franz Joseph by Russian troops under the command of General Brusilov in the summer of 1916, Bucharest decided that this choice of “senior comrades” was unsuccessful: Austria-Hungary, they say, was about to be crushed to smithereens, The forces of the Germans are also not unlimited. Therefore, it’s time to change partners – go over to the side of the Entente.

They crossed over and even declared war on Kaiser Wilhelm and the Austrians. However, this step turned out to be fraught with great trouble, in fact a catastrophe: literally 3 months later, yesterday’s allies, who had now become opponents, defeated the Romanian troops. German divisions moved towards the capital of the country.

The Romanians were unable to defend Bucharest. Therefore, all government institutions were hastily evacuated from there. At the same time, the question arose about the export of gold reserves. But where to take it? And then the idea arose to transfer the valuables for safekeeping to our powerful ally, Russia.

And so it happened that in December 1916, the first train with Romanian treasures arrived in Moscow (Belokamennaya, due to its location in the interior of the country, had by that time been chosen by the Russian authorities as a place to store state assets). Later, after the transfer of power to the Provisional Government, another Romanian “golden” train reached Moscow.

“According to some information, the total weight of gold transported from Romania to Russia was about 150 tons,” said my interlocutor, who agreed to discuss such a sensitive topic on condition of anonymity. At one time, this man worked in the system of state financial structures, and also studied issues related to the fate of the gold reserves of the Russian Empire during the Civil War.

– There is also information that in addition to “just gold” – bars, coins – then art treasures, jewelry, relics of the Romanian royal family, some archives, antiquities were also delivered to Moscow by rail…

The further fate of all this wealth was not at all as the organizers of their temporary transfer for storage believed. The October Revolution that took place in Russia and the subsequent intervention and “parade of sovereignties” led to the fact that bourgeois (that is, hostile to the Bolsheviks) Romania took Bessarabia, which had previously been part of the Russian Empire, under its wing – in other words, it took it. This resulted in punishment from the offended former ally: the Kremlin decided to temporarily seize the Romanian gold reserves and not return them to the owners.

This state of affairs continued until the mid-1930s, when the Soviets restored diplomatic relations with Romania. As a kind of gift, the leadership of the USSR sent part of the valuables from Moscow to Bucharest – according to some sources, almost a third of all the boxes previously exported by the Romanians to Russia.

The Kremlin kept the remaining two-thirds until the “Bessarabian issue” can be resolved. However, the situation only became more complicated due to the outbreak of the 2nd World War. At the end of it, Romania, which again fought for several years on the side of Germany against the USSR, found itself part of the “socialist bloc.” And then came the turn of “mutual offsets”.

According to post-war decisions adopted at the international level, Romania had to pay reparations to the Soviet Union, compensating for the damage caused by the troops of dictator Antonescu to our cities and villages and their inhabitants. However, Stalin generously forgave this impressive amount – several hundred million dollars at the exchange rate of that time – to the “brotherly” country.

In addition, the Generalissimo ordered that some more of the Romanian gold reserves be sent to Bucharest. A similar Stalinist program of action was approved by Joseph Vissarionovich’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev: under him, in 1956, some more valuables were transferred to the Romanians.

However, this process, which was so pleasant for the Romanian side, was not continued for various reasons. Although the country’s communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu at one time turned to Brezhnev with an urgent request to “return the little gold.”

According to Bucharest authorities, a total of just over 90 tons of Romanian gold remained undistributed. Now this amount, based on some calculations, has been clarified and designated in a resolution of the European Parliament – 91.5 tons.

It is precisely this “Romanian” debt, in their opinion, that hangs on today’s Russia.

However, there is reason to believe that the Romanian gentlemen and their Western European guardians are mistaken in their assessments, and in fact, debit and credit do not converge.

Here it is important to take into account that, according to existing documents, our current Russian Federation is the legal successor of the Soviet Union, but not the Russian Empire.

And I fully admit that initially the USSR received significantly less Romanian valuables than were taken out of Bucharest.

How could this happen? Let’s remember that in the troubled revolutionary years, about half of Russia’s total gold reserves – and with it, very likely, “imported” Romanian wealth – were sent from troubled Moscow further east – to Kazan. However, in the summer of 1918, the White Guards drove the Bolshevik troops out of this city. As a result, all state treasures located in Kazan were at the disposal of counter-revolutionary forces. Later, when the Red Army went on the offensive, the gold was transported to Siberia, to Kolchak.

The further fate of the huge valuables from the state treasury is not precisely known. Most of them disappeared – some were probably spent on military needs, on the purchase of weapons, equipment, some were perhaps hidden in caches, some were taken abroad by the “whites”, and ended up with the Japanese and soldiers Czechoslovak corps… The Bolsheviks were ultimately able to regain not so many Soviets for the young Republic of Soviets.

Hence the conclusion: a fair amount of the precious metal transferred by Romania to Russia for storage was stolen, spent by representatives of Russian counter-revolutionary forces, taken out by interventionists and was never found in the gold reserves of the Soviet Union at all. Therefore, the successor to the USSR, the Russian Federation, should not return this part, which disappeared during the hard years of the Civil War.