that this gold was ever recovered by the Soviet authorities. Of the 
237,300,000 rubles of gold which arrived at Vladivostok, 68,300,000 
rubles were paid over outright and 126,800,000 rubles were pledged 
to Allied financial interests, leaving a balance of 42,200,000 rubles 
in the vaults of the Vladivostok office of the State bank. About 
the end of October, 1919 when Omsk and Western Siberia had to 
be evacuated by the Kolchak Government, the balance of the gold 
reserve was shipped east on a special train, which was abandoned 
by Admiral Kolchak at Nizhneudinsk and for some time was 
guarded by the Czechoslovak troops, who delivered the gold to the 
Soviet authorities about the close of January, 1920, prior to their 
Anal evacuation of the country. 
In addition to the gold of the Russian State Bank the Soviet 
authorities also held bout 118,200,000 rubles of Rumanian gold, 
shipped to Moscow by the Rumanian Government for safe-keeping 
during the German invasion late in 1916 and at the beginning of 
i917. Their holdings were also augmented to a small extent by 
requisitions and confiscations of church and private treasure and 
the output of the Ural and Siberian gold mines. All in all the 
amount of gold in the hands of the Soviet Government at the close 
of the Civil War in 1920 is estimated by Novitzky at about 
900,000,000, Or 1,000, 000,000 rubles, composed of, first, about 450,- 
000,000 rubles, the balance left in their hands after payment of 
the German indemnity and the loss of gold in Kazan in 1918, and 
second, another 450,000,000, which comprises the gold which fell 
into their hands at Omsk, Nizhneudinsk and Irkutsk following the 
overthrow of the Kolchak and other Anti-Soviet governments, and 
finally the Rumanian gold and the small amounts of new produc- 
tion.” The official Statistical Annual of the Soviet Government for 
1018-1920 (Vol. II, p. 41) shows the following amounts of gold 
held by the central office of the Budget and Accounts, the temporary 
successor to the former State bank, and in charge of its liquidation: 
(IN GOLD RUBLES) 
Jan. 1, 1920 July 1,1920 Jan. 1, 1921 
3,052,622 87.194.636 153,745,769 
Held in the central treasury 
Accounts of the State bank 
in liquidation: 
Gold at the mint... 
Gold in transit ........ 
19,450,764 19,450,764 
'76,381.3F 568,479,353 
483,026,751 741,675,876 
Figures for the earlier dates apparently are incomplete and do 
not include the accounts of outlying offices in Siberia, data for 
Total woe, 
2 R