A Russian historian claims to have solved the 200-year-old mystery of where Napoleon’s troops hid 80 tonnes of gold on their retreat from Moscow in 1812.
Viacheslav Ryzhkov claims the French Emperor ordered decoys to be sent to a fictional burial site 40 miles from the actual location.
Ryzhkov says the famed ‘Napoleon Lake’, Semlevo, in the Smolensk region was a fraud, while the real loot was carted off to Lake Bolshaya Rutavech near his hometown of Rudnya.
It was Napoleon himself who accompanied the real bounty and ordered decoy convoys to be sent towards Lake Semlevo to distract Alexander I’s forces.
The historian told the Rabochy Put newspaper he believes unfounded rumours were deliberately disseminated by Napoleon’s men to hide the true location of the treasure close to the Belorussian border.
The French Emperor had the treasure brought close to the historian’s hometown of Rudnya where it was thrown into Lake Bolshaya Rutavech, the Russian paper reports.
The historian claims Napoleon had some of the treasure melted into ingots before it was packed off on 400 wagons accompanied by 500 cavalry and 250 members of Napoleon’s elite Old Guard.
Ryzhkov told Rabochy Put that the Emperor himself went with the treasure to oversee its complicated burial.
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