HOARDS: PSYCHOLOGY AND TYPES

🏺 Savings hoards ("kubyshki")

The most common type of peasant hoard.

• **The idea:** A family's savings accumulated over years or decades.
• **Composition:** A huge quantity of copper coins (sometimes hundreds of kilograms), with some silver mixed in.
• **Where they were hidden:** Within the house or the garden plot. Under the floor, in a corner, under the stove, or under a distinctive tree in the orchard. Buried at a shallow depth, so the owner could quickly add to it.

🔥 Emergency hoards (situational caches)

Hidden at a moment of danger (war, revolution, dekulakization).

• **The idea:** "Grab the most valuable things and bury them so the enemy won't find them."
• **Composition:** Gold, jewelry, table silver, awards/medals. Compact and valuable.
• **Where they were hidden:** In a hurry. In the woods near a road, on a field boundary, by a distinctive rock. Often shallow (just a spade's depth), since there was no time to dig deep.

🏠 Foundation deposit coins

A ritual performed when building a house, "for good luck."

• **Where:** Under the "красный угол" (the icon corner), under the threshold, under the stove.
• **Composition:** Usually one or several large coins (a silver ruble or a five-kopeck piece).