In Russia in the post-war years, a new phrase appeared. What is "black diggers" at first was not clear. However, over time, the activities of these people increasingly declared themselves. The people call them differently "black diggers", "black trackers", "black archaeologists". Blacks because they work without official permits and certainly not for the benefit of humanity.
So what are black diggers?
This is the name of people who excavate with the help of metal detectors in places of fierce battles during different wars. They also pursue different goals: someone is engaged in scientific interests, and someone - from personal material motives. Searchers can work alone or in organized groups. As a rule, all of them are well versed in historical artifacts and fully assume what they can find.
Artifacts can be parts of a soldier's ammunition, weapons, ammunition, awards, household items, and more. Those who study the area and its burials for scientific purposes often then donate what they find to museums. Another category operates only for the purpose of profit and is supplied to the "black" market. The greatest demand is for rare items from the war, for which collectors pay significant sums of money. Items with SS symbols are popular for the young fascist movement in the Russian environment. Such treasure hunters go to great lengths so that, as they say, the “truth about Sparta” is hidden, that is, it is not at all in their interests to disclose either the excavation site or the quantity and composition of what was found there. Although such facts can sometimes change part of the story related precisely to the local battle, where black archaeologists were excavating.
Quite often, black treasure hunters fall into the networks of law enforcement agencies, they are detained, tried, but the number of "black" workers still does not change. The money thus obtained seems to them easy money, and they are not embarrassed that in search of artifacts they destroy archaeological sites. The main problem of archaeologists on the part of treasure hunters is that you can buy hand-held metal detectors absolutely freely. The prime minister of the country was also asked for help, who promised to consider the possibility of introducing licensing for the sale of such equipment.
At the same time, it should be noted that the existing protection measures in the Russian legislation are not sufficient; in fact, "black diggers" can only be attracted under several different articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
In places where fierce battles took place during the Great Patriotic War, search parties are working. Those searchers who do not have official permission to conduct search work automatically fall into the category of "black trackers". They are also called "black archaeologists" or "black diggers".
Some of them are people who do what they love, but who do not have permission to excavate. It often happens that then they join historical clubs that have these permits.
But there are others who excavate: collectors pay dearly for various military items, awards, and especially weapons.
"Cool". These are small, well-organized groups that are looking exclusively for ammunition and weapons. Mostly they come across cartridges and explosives.
"Professionals". For them, forest search is also the main source of income. They usually go to the forest for two or three months. Finding an untouched position, they dig out everything more or less valuable. In addition to weapons and ammunition, "professionals" also take German helmets, buckles, buttons, and SS symbols.
Representatives of the third type of search engines call themselves "archaeologists". According to them, the guys are not pursuing any material gain. Like, searching for them is something like a hobby.
The fourth type is "jackals". Guys 17-18 years old. They do not dig themselves, they pick up what the professionals left on the "opened" positions. They can, having collected grenades, throw them into the fire and watch with curiosity what will come of it. This is the craziest category.
"Black diggers" are digging the earth, extracting from it half-decayed attributes of the war: weapons, orders and medals, personal belongings of those left on the battlefields, their skulls and bones. But for them, bones are worthless rubbish, the costs of a trophy business, for which they won’t even give a penny on the market.
The object of their attention is, first of all, weapons, military awards, personal values.
Buttons, buckles and other small things from the Great Patriotic War hit the market. Badges and medals are in high demand.
These things are bought by collectors and fascist teenagers. If collectors are interested in rare specimens, then shaven-headed teenagers buy something cheaper, if only with a swastika. This forms the assortment: fascist paraphernalia prevails on the shelves.
It happens that behind the "black trackers" there are serious structures selling their findings. They manage to smuggle tanks and cannons from the war times under the guise of scrap metal. There, all this is restored and appears in museums.
If the "black diggers" dug out weapons are put in order, then such weapons are in demand in the criminal world, because the number of the weapon is often erased during cleaning, the ammunition for it is no longer used anywhere and has also lost its marking, eaten away by corrosion. In addition, explosives obtained from shell cases are also in demand.
The worst thing is that the "black digger" easily endangers his own and other people's lives. After all, many of them drag their dangerous finds home without thinking about the consequences.
All illegal activities of diggers with weapons fall under the Russian Federation. It provides for punishment for trafficking in weapons and ammunition, as well as for their storage and transportation. Even a few bullets and a part of some kind of explosive device can lead to the dock. The maximum punishment is 8 years in prison.
Article 223 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation states that "illegal manufacture or repair of firearms, components for them, as well as illegal manufacture of ammunition, explosives or explosive devices are punishable by imprisonment for up to 4 years."
Somewhere since 2005, in the forests and in the fields, I began to come across people in camouflage, with metal detectors and small, alien, light shovels. Residents of remote villages in conversations also began to tell me that some strangers were wandering around their gardens and fields, looking for something, digging holes in the ground. These pits, dug on all dirt roads and often not dripped, they got the villagers. People complained that these visitors were digging up old cemeteries at night, and climbing into abandoned houses, lifting corners with a jack, breaking stoves. The local peasants did not like it, it came to swearing and to clashes. From the stories of the village people, I realized that this new phenomenon worries them and decided to look into it. Moreover, the villagers asked me to clarify the situation and write at least some article so that it was clear to them who had come to visit them and how they should treat these guests.
After thinking and listening to the villagers, I decided to write an accusatory article directed against uninvited guests. They say they came in large numbers here, they go everywhere, sniffing out, looking out, asking questions, searching, digging, plundering historical heritage and all that. But according to my corrosive rural habit, I first decided to seriously delve into the essence of the issue, to understand what I was going to write about, so that later I would not become a laughing stock in the eyes of fellow countrymen who had hoped for me. And unexpectedly I discovered a new, interesting world that exists in the forests and fields in parallel with me and regardless of my attitude towards it. A world populated by passionate people. As a result, my article turned out to be completely different than it was originally intended.
It was published in one of the local newspapers. Then I supplemented it with new data, reasoning, and it went around among the search engines and their opponents for a long time and caused a lot of responses. The search engines thanked me for the objective approach and for the questions raised in it. This article is also memorable for me because it quarreled with official archaeologists and, in the words of one young, ardent scientist, "closed the door to their community forever before me." Anyway. There are many other doors in this life, and there are many roads in the forest.
Here is the article.
A serene, sunny, summer day in 2011. On my old, reliable, kind bicycle “Minsk”, I am going to Khakhlevo, a village that does not exist now, which was previously located between and Moshchanitsy, a little to the west of them. An old, straight, like a string, beautiful, now not a driving road with drainage ditches overgrown with birches along the sides leads me to the edge of a deep, impassable dense ravine that starts from Alyoshkovo and goes to Vinevsky Yards. Here, stretching along the ravine, the village of Khakhlevo used to be. Now it is a wasteland, overgrown with small forests and dense, tall, human-sized grass. The backwoods is utter, not a soul around. Even the viper, curled up on a stump and basking in the sun, thinks for a long time whether to crawl away at my approach or not, and finally, lazily, reluctantly, slides off the stump into a thicket of wild raspberries.
Suddenly, a steep (not “asphalt”) SUV with a “kenguryatnik” on the hood leaves me with a roar right at me from the thick grass, goes around me and goes towards Moshchanitsy. I just have time to make out three young guys in good camouflage and with metal detectors sitting in a car and looking at me in surprise: “Where did this idiot come from here ?!”
"Blacks". Recently, I constantly, everywhere I meet them, even in the most remote places. They have become an indispensable and integral part of any rural landscape.
Who are they - these "blacks", where did they come from?
Let's try to figure it out.
The term "black archaeologists", "black diggers" appeared in the early sixties of the last century, when enterprising young people began to dig up the places of bloody battles of the Great Patriotic War in search of weapons, but also orders, medals, insignia, etc. This was facilitated by the fact that the remains of our soldiers (and not ours) who fell heroically in battle were not properly buried. The excavations of those distant years were purely commercial in nature. There was a whole illegal (and sometimes legal) market for everything that was extracted from the ground. This was a risky business. "Blacks" were often blown up by mines and shells of the Second World War. Yes, and the locals treated them with hatred and contempt, and sometimes staged lynching over them. After all, the memories of that terrible war were still fresh in the hearts.
Gradually, this movement began to fade away. There were fewer and fewer unexcavated places, the years went by, the metal in the earth rusted. In addition, competitors appeared - official, legal detachments of search engine enthusiasts, often consisting of former, but come to their senses, "blacks", who were now engaged in the search, identification and burial of the remains of fallen soldiers, that is, a noble deed.
In the crazy nineties, the baton of "black archaeologists" was taken over by grave diggers in old, rural cemeteries. The remote cemeteries of Rostislavl, Alyoshkov, Rebrov, Kobyakov were ruthlessly dug up. It was something terrible, it was a misfortune never seen before in our area. Huge pits, dumps of freshly dug earth, bones, skulls, silently looking with empty eye sockets at the deeds of their descendants. With these skulls, planted on sticks, the boys in our district frightened the girls. Immediately an influx of pectoral crosses, rings, orders and medals of all wars in the spontaneous market in Izmailovo. Why be surprised? How many churches were blown up and destroyed at one time? How many cemeteries have been desecrated, bulldozed? (In our country, the cemeteries of our ancestors are a favorite place for building. Lettered houses stand in the cemetery, and garages have been built at the Ozyory state farm in the cemetery.) If the state can do this, then why can’t individual people?
At the beginning of the 2000s, with the introduction of imported, sensitive metal detectors, the third generation of fortune hunters appeared, proudly calling themselves search engines. These are people who are very enthusiastic, who know history well, often have a higher education, and are familiar with the method of conducting searches and archaeological excavations. A man in camouflage, with a metal detector and a light shovel in his hand, has firmly “registered” in our area.
They talk a lot about these people, often telling stories about found treasures, countless treasures, hiding places, etc., like the story about Count Monte Cristo. I often go to the field, in the forest and communicate with different people: mushroom pickers, herb gatherers, hunters, poachers, lumberjacks, and now with search engines. And I naturally formed my own idea of them and their activities.
People are mostly young, from 17 to 35 years old, strong, athletic, although there are "guys" forty or fifty years old, and older. They are well oriented on the terrain, skillfully using ancient maps, military maps, navigators, electronic maps, images from space. They read special literature on archeology, have information about the searches and finds of official archaeologists (many of the searchers themselves worked on archaeological expeditions.). Some of them are so passionate about the search that they walk near the villages even at night, with a headlamp, scaring the local old ladies and giving rise to legends about will-o'-the-wisp, aliens, restless souls, etc. Finds are classified, cataloged, exchanged, consulted with specialists. Some of them have collections of finds that could do honor to any serious museum. Search engines have their own websites, their own newspapers and magazines, through which they communicate, share their impressions and information, and get to know each other. There are specialized stores where you can buy everything that a fortune hunter needs. In a word, it is a whole world of its own, with its own concepts, rules, laws, language, code of honor. The world is not at all dangerous, friendly and (paradoxically) open to interested people and even archaeologists who hate search engines. For all the time of my long walks through the forests and fields and collecting material for this article, I have never had conflicts and any tensions with search engines. On the contrary, when they found out that I wanted to write an objective (I don’t know how successful I was) article about them, they helped me in every possible way, told me a lot of interesting things, treated my amateurishness with understanding and tolerated my naive questions.
Most of them do not dig graves, burial mounds. Marauders are despised, calling them "vultures", they do not search in places of official, archaeological monuments. They do not interfere with the work of federal archaeologists and do not argue with them, unconditionally recognizing the right of primacy for the "licensed".
The unearthed pieces of iron, which are of no interest, are laid out in a conspicuous place so that those who go after them do not repeat the work already done. They are happy to exhibit their finds in museums (provided that they are preserved) and even kindly provide them for compiling catalogs and lectures on local history.
Unfortunately, I have not yet succeeded in creating an ideal portrait of the disinterested “knight of the fields”. Some of the search engines, and this is a considerable army, does not hesitate to dig up old cemeteries, “bomb” mounds, “dive” into the territories of officially declared and well-known monuments, causing great harm by their actions. (I'm not talking about the moral side of excavating cemeteries, if talking about morality is generally appropriate here). So many old cemeteries in our district were partially or completely destroyed.
Search engine language
The language of the search engines is very informative and interesting. For example:
- Raise - i.e. find a thing;
- Obron - a thing found outside an ancient settlement, accidentally dropped in a field, on a forest road;
- Domongol is a find of the pre-Mongolian period.
- The remake is a modern find.
- Koninka (horse meat) is a copper or bronze piece of horse harness.
- Chernina - "black" metal (steel, cast iron)
- Tsvetnina - "non-ferrous" metal (silver, copper, bronze, brass, lead, aluminum, etc.)
- Scales - a small, really reminiscent of fish scales, a coin.
- Udel, specific scales - a rather rare coin of a specific principality.
- Empire - coins from Peter the Great to 1917
- Soviets - a coin of the Soviet era.
- Hodyachka is a modern coin in circulation.
- A weight is a solid or hollow copper (sometimes bronze) button.
- Licensed - official archaeologists.
- Reputation is a special status of a person in the fields. Kind of like a princely scarlet cloak or knightly insignia. A person with a Reputation will always find a place by the fire, they will feed him, give him drink, tell him everything, show him and treat him with respect. Reputation is hard to earn and easy to lose.
- Concepts are the unspoken rules of behavior in the forest and in the fields, the rules of polite treatment of any person you meet on the search.
Why is this movement of search engines expanding, growing, gaining momentum?
Well, first of all, it's a good, interesting, intensive rest after work. Here and excitement, and adrenaline, and fresh air, and wonderful, untouched (search engines often go to remote places), nature. In any case, this is certainly better than spending your free time standing at the liquor store. The study of native history, again. Most search engines are good historians and local historians. Frankly, I learned a lot of new and interesting things from them. And than. We have only federal, official archaeologists and, to our great regret, there are no regional archaeologists, let alone district ones. So, in general, by and large, there is no one to deal with archaeological local history in our region. Moreover, antiques cannot lie in the ground for a long time and wait for their “official” hour. “Nothing lasts forever under the Moon” ─ a banal truth! Antiquities are eaten up by corrosion (especially in fields where fertilizers are poured), they are mutilated and broken by a plow when plowing. (The plow "takes" 40 cm, and the device of the search engines - 15 cm. And after all, no one scolds the tractor driver for the destruction of the cultural layer and finds!). Crushed by disk cutters when loosening the soil. Dachas are built on their places of occurrence (and dachas are built mainly in picturesque and comfortable places for living, where ancient settlements used to be), trenches are dug for laying communications. If it were not for the search engines, then many of the finds would have been lost long ago and irretrievably. And so they are preserved, intact, and this is not bad, although they are still in private collections. And there you will see! By the way, many search engines are ready even now to transfer part of their collections to museums. But not all our museums can guarantee them the safety of their collections. I remember well how in the days of my distant childhood in our Ozersk Museum of Local Lore there was a large table, where many different coins lay under glass. And on the wall hung about five of some old sabers. Now, for some reason, neither coins nor sabers are exhibited in our museum.
Whether we like it or not, the movement of search engines is expanding and gaining momentum. And this cannot be ignored. It's like gray hair at the temples. You can arbitrarily lament about this, be indignant, but it will not change much. As we say in Bolotovo: “A man was angry at the market for seven years, but he didn’t know the market!” Scolding the movement of search engines, we thereby create advertising for them. In the end, Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered Troy to the world, was also “black” by the standards of official archaeologists! After all, he did not have a special archaeological education! Another thing is to direct this movement in a more civilized direction. Develop rules, introduce certification, membership cards like hunting cards, licenses to search in certain areas. (After all, we do not condemn or prohibit amateur hunters, although there are also professional hunters - fishermen. The parallel is obvious.). Designate places where amateur (and any other) search is prohibited (which has not yet been done). Use an army of enthusiasts - search engines for good purposes: reconnaissance, geolocation, etc. After all, it is no secret that official archeology is small, underfunded and, with all its desire, cannot conduct such a large-scale, “carpet” search, as search engines do. Archaeologists often simply do not have the opportunity and means to explore all the promising places, and they will never get to some of them at all. And as you know: "A holy place is never empty." When in the dashing nineties it was tight with doctors, various kinds of "psychics", "healers", "clairvoyants" appeared. And now there are probably more search engines in our fields than fishermen on the Oka. People come to us from Moscow, Kashira, Zaraisk, Ryazan - from everywhere! And it's already starting to get annoying. All fields, all country roads are pitted with holes. I have met these pits, already sore eyes, in the most deaf and hard-to-reach places. In Kobyakovo, Khakhlev, Gremyachevo, Fofanov. It would be necessary to somehow streamline all this, but again, reasonably and without confrontation and persecution. After all, the persecuted and offended in Rus' have long been loved and pitied!
Prohibitive measures are unlikely to be effective here. In addition, for comparison, in the spring of this year, a huge trench was dug through the settlement of ancient Rostislavl with the help of an excavator for laying pipes. According to archaeologists, the cultural layer literally stuffed with antiquities, the area of which is more than 400 square meters, has been irretrievably lost. meters! Where are the search engines with their sapper shovels! Nobody was punished for it. There was a trial at which Maxim Muromsky and I spoke, at which the actions of the people who dug the trench were recognized as legal. The archaeologists (whom we invited) never came to the court, although before that they were indignant, tore the shirt on their chest and all that.
Afterword.
September 24th. Maxim Muromsky and I are going to Obukhovsky Pond to photograph the autumn sunset. A little to the side, barely distinguishable in camouflage, five search engines are walking along a freshly plowed field, stretching out in a chain like infantry. Deftly working as metal detectors, they are concentrated on "scratching" everything "under the comb". Behind them, like a support tank, crawls a huge SUV with Moscow numbers. At the sight of this picture, for some reason, it became anxious in my soul.
I stated my purely personal point of view on the problem, which can no longer be dismissed so simply. I would like to know the opinion on this issue of respected readers and the heroes of my article themselves.
Heartfelt gratitude for consultations, trips "in the field", conversations around the fire and review of the article to the search engines Ivan, Alexander and Mikhail.
In places where fierce battles took place during the Great Patriotic War, search parties are working. Those searchers who do not have official permission to conduct search work automatically fall into the category of "black trackers". They are also called "black archaeologists" or "black diggers".
Some of them are people who do what they love, but who do not have permission to excavate. It often happens that then they join historical clubs that have these permits.
But there are others who excavate: collectors pay dearly for various military items, awards, and especially weapons.
"Cool". These are small, well-organized groups that are looking exclusively for ammunition and weapons. Mostly they come across cartridges and explosives.
"Professionals". For them, forest search is also the main source of income. They usually go to the forest for two or three months. Finding an untouched position, they dig out everything more or less valuable. In addition to weapons and ammunition, "professionals" also take German helmets, buckles, buttons, and SS symbols.
Representatives of the third type of search engines call themselves "archaeologists". According to them, the guys are not pursuing any material gain. Like, searching for them is something like a hobby.
The fourth type is "jackals". Guys 17-18 years old. They do not dig themselves, they pick up what the professionals left on the "opened" positions. They can, having collected grenades, throw them into the fire and watch with curiosity what will come of it. This is the craziest category.
"Black diggers" are digging the earth, extracting from it half-decayed attributes of the war: weapons, orders and medals, personal belongings of those left on the battlefields, their skulls and bones. But for them, bones are worthless rubbish, the costs of a trophy business, for which they won’t even give a penny on the market.
The object of their attention is, first of all, weapons, military awards, personal values.
Buttons, buckles and other small things from the Great Patriotic War hit the market. Badges and medals are in high demand.
These things are bought by collectors and fascist teenagers. If collectors are interested in rare specimens, then shaven-headed teenagers buy something cheaper, if only with a swastika. This forms the assortment: fascist paraphernalia prevails on the shelves.
It happens that behind the "black trackers" there are serious structures selling their findings. They manage to smuggle tanks and cannons from the war times under the guise of scrap metal. There, all this is restored and appears in museums.
If the "black diggers" dug out weapons are put in order, then such weapons are in demand in the criminal world, because the number of the weapon is often erased during cleaning, the ammunition for it is no longer used anywhere and has also lost its marking, eaten away by corrosion. In addition, explosives obtained from shell cases are also in demand.
The worst thing is that the "black digger" easily endangers his own and other people's lives. After all, many of them drag their dangerous finds home without thinking about the consequences.
All illegal activities of diggers with weapons fall under the Russian Federation. It provides for punishment for trafficking in weapons and ammunition, as well as for their storage and transportation. Even a few bullets and a part of some kind of explosive device can lead to the dock. The maximum punishment is 8 years in prison.
Article 223 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation states that "illegal manufacture or repair of firearms, components for them, as well as illegal manufacture of ammunition, explosives or explosive devices are punishable by imprisonment for up to 4 years."
The current version of the page has not yet been reviewed by experienced contributors and may differ significantly from the one reviewed on January 20, 2019; checks are required.
Black diggers- a collective name that has become traditional for amateur search engines of various directions, single or organized in groups, engaged in illegal digging of various antiquities.
There are three main areas: "black archaeologists", "treasure hunters" and "trophy hunters". These names arose spontaneously (like the digger slang itself), so they have variants and regional differences. The most commonly used generalizing term is "diggers".
"Black archaeologists" (also "archs", "diggers", "field workers", "foresters", "kurgans", "bumps") are persons or organized groups engaged in the search for historical artifacts at archaeological sites, without having " open list”, that is, official permission for the scientific study of the monument, which puts them outside the law. The title plays on the opposition with "white archaeologists", that is, with scientists [ ] . Archaeologists, as well as historians and other concerned people, are protesting against the use of the word "archaeology" for black diggers, who are classified as criminals. This activity without an open sheet is a criminal offense and is punishable by imprisonment for up to six years (Article 243 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Another offshoot is usually called "treasure hunters" (also "field workers", "diggers"). They search (“ches”) in abandoned villages, as well as in the surrounding lands. Their activity is not entirely harmless, since not only small household items from different periods, but also real treasures become prey. Experts say that the situation with treasures is even more acute. Treasures are rapidly selected, with rare exceptions, divided into separate items, and sold on the black market. Despite this, the search for treasure is not prohibited by law.
Some treasure hunters examine evicted houses in cities (“burglars”, “attics”, “underground workers”) or various dungeons (“diggers”), others are looking for lost items on the beaches (“beach people”). Another direction is engaged in underwater search ("divers").
Trophy workers (“militants”, “black trackers”, “diggers”) are searching for battlefields, mainly during the Great Patriotic War. The name "black trackers" was assigned to these search engines back in Soviet times. It was used in the press as a contrast "Red Pathfinders"- schoolchildren involved in military-patriotic search work [ ] . In our time, the opposition is being played out with "red diggers"- official search engines. The activity of trophy hunters took on a massive character immediately after the liberation of Königsberg, where, among other things, they searched graveyard(hiding places) of the fleeing German population and were opened with the aim of robbing the grave. The main finds of trophies are: weapons, ammunition, explosives, parts of ammunition, awards, soldier's tokens, etc. Some are engaged in the restoration of weapons. Often the finds go on sale, including weapons and explosives, in which the underworld is interested. In Russia, the created collections of weapons often do not comply with the existing legislation, therefore, if they are found, they are confiscated. Some diggers ("gravediggers", "gravediggers") rob not only unburied soldiers, but also dig up burial places in search of personal belongings and tokens. Of greatest interest to them are German soldiers (“hans-lounger”), since the German side sometimes pays for information about them, and neo-Nazis are willing to buy Nazi paraphernalia. Heavy equipment is also removed. One of the former "black diggers" who was engaged in precisely military archeology in the period from 2002 to 2008, wrote a book about his hectic activities. Without trying to justify himself and his hobby, he tells quite truthfully in a biographical manner about his initial motives, about the geography of excavations at the battlefields and about changing his worldview as he gets acquainted with the "echo of war".
They do not necessarily take part in the excavations themselves, but, by searching through printed and archival sources, they provide information to all other categories.
One of the many holes dug by a black digger and an abandoned find. year 2013
Black diggers harm archaeological sites - primarily by erasing the context in which the thing was found.
A practice similar to that deployed by black diggers has existed at almost all times and throughout the world. In old Russia, the so-called “bugrovshchiki”, that is, those who dig up mounds, hunted for this. In Egypt, the population of entire villages was engaged in a similar “business”, passing the “craft” from generation to generation.
Gravediggers are especially active during periods of political instability, but prosperous countries also have this problem. Grave looting, Nighthawks). During the Second World War and in the post-war period, in search of gold and jewelry, Polish peasants dug up the remains of Jews from mass graves in the territory of a former concentration camp.
The destruction of archaeological sites damages the cultural heritage, depriving science of the opportunity to restore many pages of history.
Some archaeologists, historians and other concerned citizens oppose the activities of black diggers and distributors of metal detectors in Russia. In some [ what?] In European countries, the sale of metal detectors is prohibited, and in some countries of the former USSR (Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine) it is prohibited to use metal detectors in the organization of scientific and archaeological research without special permission.
The community of diggers contains dozens of forums on the Internet, which are actually the headquarters of the movement, where groups openly get together for the next sortie, treasure hunt tours are offered. And often we are talking about medieval and even Neolithic monuments. The results of the raids are posted on the forums in the form of photographs, videos, stories. There are also printed publications (newspapers, magazines, works of art) that popularize the activities of black diggers. Treasure hunt tours are also offered on the Internet.
