The find, dating from the final decades of the Russian Empire, may be worth well over half a million dollars (c. £375,000) today.

The excavation was carried out in 2025 by researchers from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the All-Russian Historical and Ethnographic Museum, ahead of planned construction work on the site. During the dig, archaeologists uncovered a pit containing the shattered remains of a glazed earthenware mug, known as a candyushka, packed with coins minted between 1848 and 1911.

The collection comprised 387 ten-rouble gold coins, ten five-rouble coins, ten fifteen-rouble coins, and two seven-and-a-half-rouble coins, amounting to 4,085 roubles in total, Live Science reports.

To appreciate the scale of the find, historic currency records show that in 1916 the exchange rate stood at 6.7 roubles to the US dollar, meaning the hoard represented around $610 (c. £460) at the time, the equivalent of over $18,000 (c. 13,500) today. However, given that each ten-rouble coin is composed of 90% gold and carries a melt value of nearly $1,300 (c. £980), the entire collection could fetch well in excess of $500,000 (c. £375,000) on the current market.

The coins will be transferred to the All-Russian Historical and Ethnographic Museum for safekeeping and study.