Haiku
Jedi Master
The Cursed Green Gem … (Just cleaned this one up)
It was the late 1950’s in rural Pennsylvania, A young woman of 17 was taking care of her grandmother in the family's historic home. As it was, the grandmother was a world traveler in the 1900-1927 who visited many European countries. She was also known as a thief of that time. She had traveled from England to Sweden in this time and because of her extracurricular actives, was constantly followed by police forces of the realm. Word had it that she had picked up an item that had a high intrinsic value, it was why many legit and illegit people were after her for all of those years.
The two of them were in the living room, the grandmother in the family rocking chair, the young woman knelling beside her. She pulled an item from her pocket, a silk handkerchief that was folded to cover an item. The fabric was old, it had tears and stains on it from many years covering the item. She continued to pull each flap of silk away one by one until you could see a gemstone. Not just any stone but a cut emerald, it was almost two inches long and rectangular in shape. The facets were brilliant with a color that made the young girls eyes open in awe of the gem. Of course, the young woman new absolutely nothing about the value of this item and was quite naïve of real world and how it existed, the grandmother fully understood this, it was why she chose this young girl for this need.
What she wanted her to do was to hide the gemstone so it would never be found. She wrapped up the gem and set it upon two leather bound books and thrust them all into the young woman’s hands. The grandmother gave her one warning, she said to never carry the gem at any time, it only brings misery. Put it someplace where it will never be found, ever again.
“What about the books”, the young woman asked.
“Do with them as you wish, I want to forget everything in them.” She returned. “Go put them in your room, scurry off now.”
The young woman took the books and gem up to her bedroom just as her grandmother said. In her room she opened up the gem again to inspect it. It was the most beautiful item that she had ever seen. She felt it and an shiver drew up her back, it was like the gem was responding to her. She remembered the words of her grandmother and what to do with it. She started by wrapping up the gem in the silk and then stashing the wrapped gemstone in her old dolls apron pocket. It had a ceramic head and was her first doll that her father ever gave to her, she loved this doll for many years when she was younger. Now it held a treasure beyond description. She set it with seven others she had sitting on a shelf.
Her attention turned to the books, one much older than the other, both had no writing on the outside. In fact, they look kind of like a journal than a bound book. She opened the older one and she was right, it was a journal. But she couldn’t understand what was written in it, it was some foreign language. She wasn’t going to read them, at least not yet, she didn’t even know what language that they were in. She closed the journal and put both of them with the rest of her books.
Upon returning downstairs she found out that the grandmother had left suddenly. She barely hugged her daughter, the young woman’s mother, and she hustled out the door. The grandmother never returned again, she was put in a convalescent home and passed away less than a year later.
The journals …
The young girl of seventeen grew up and at an age of forty-nine she came across someone that could translate them for her, these are the notes she took as the story unfolded.
‘Book 2, Petrograd, Russia, March 5, 1917
I don’t have a lot of time, the war is coming to an end, it looks like Russians were going to lose or they were predicted to lose. It is difficult to say but I do believe they knew this was going to happen whether they wanted it or not, it was predisposed by someone much higher than the government here.
I am with the man in blue still, he married me at age 9. I have become his attachment, not his wife as he still has not touched me. He is not interested in physical love, he loves money. I am just an element of his life, just there for the look of being attached to him, nothing more. He takes me everywhere, he dresses me, he feeds me, well most of the time. I am 16 now. I am not his trophy wife, just a necessity of his life.
He is the thief with major authority as he holds a major lands-right in England. Right now he is looking at stealing the royal jewels from Russia, nobody else seems to know this.
Petrograd, Russia, March 6, 1917; I am with the man in blue, we are in a cottage outside of Petrograd, there are a dozen other men here, they were the bullies and trash of the town, absolute scoundrels you wouldn’t normally trust, they were nothing more than fall guys to him. He was planning a heist, one that would take a large assortment of treasures out of the country. The intent was to hide them until the heat calmed or he could find a reputable buyer that would keep their mouth shut over their origin, his plan was for the latter.
Petrograd, Russia, March 7, 1917; She was sent into town with one of the bruisers, the man in blue said it would be less suspicious with me there. The bruiser bought two four-horse wagons from the stable and with my help we brought them back to the cottage. While we were gone the rest of the men were busy, they had been building crates, lots of crates. When we arrived they piled them high on the wagons, so high she thought that they might hit the bridges as they passed beneath them, but they just cleared. We are in town now, the roughest part of town. The man in blue said that we are waiting here for morning, this place that we are staying in for the night is filthy, it was an old, abandoned pig farm, she slept on the wagons seat for this night, the rest stayed in the barn or the house with the man in blue.
Petrograd, Russia, March 8, 1917; It was early, hours before sunup, the fog hadn’t even lifted yet. It gave an eerie look to the world this morning. You could hear the war, it was close now, and the time was ripe for some behind the scenes thievery, take advantage of the war situation. Men on horses and the two wagons made it through town to a gated cellar door below the castle, a trickle of water could be seen running out through it.
The gate had a lock on it, a new one, the man in blue had the key and it unlocked with ease, he had prepared it for opening. Then came the hard part as it took four men to bend the rusted gate structure out of the way enough for all of the crates to enter.
She was told to stay on the wagon for an alarm in case someone showed up, there wasn’t thank goodness. But crates were unloaded and carried into the darkness, it took three trips. An hour passed, there was no commotion to indicate an issue, but they were taking too much time. An explosion happened about three blocks away, smoke and sparks could be seen billowing up in the night. And night was starting to end as the sun was coming up, a soft glow could be seen on the horizon.
It was then that the crates started coming out, one after another and they were heavy as the wagons sunk with every crates loading. I am on the first wagon, it just got done being loaded. The man in blue jumped up into the seat pushing me aside. He snapped the whip at the horses and they took off dragging the heavy load behind them. I looked back and the rest of the men were loading the second wagon, they were half done and there was a commotion. I could see lights coming from inside the tunnel, men were arriving, other torches were coming down the hill outside the castle. The fog hid the rest. It seems that she didn’t see any of those men ever again.
Troitsk Tponuk, Russia, March 10, 1917; two of the horses died today, all four were replaced by the man in blue as a precaution. He paid the man with a single gem, it was a golden color. The stable man took it and bit down upon it to make sure it was real, it was. With the gold jewel in his hand he dropped the reins of the horses and walked away paying full attention to the gem he held. I figure that it was worth ten times what the horses were worth, hopefully it will also keep him quiet from the transaction.
Kazakhstan, just across the border, March 11, 1917; there were four men there, they had a second wagon and split the crate load between the two of them. The one that I am on still feels heavier, the more important part of the load I bet, the second wagon had the larger crates. We are traveling south-east for a while then splitting up and heading on separate paths south-west. In case one was caught the other might still get through to the Black Sea where he had a boat waiting in Sochi Cohn.
There is a lot of stuff on what they ate and slept as it took them weeks to get to the black sea. Their wagon was the first one to arrive, as expected, but the second one arrived three days later. I got to sleep with the food stuffs on the ship, and as long as I kept out of the way nobody seemed to noticed me. the crates were stashed below deck with an armed guard on them full time, the man in blue he didn’t trust anyone as he kept an eye on the guard the whole trip to Spain. We off-loaded in Noja, the man in blue got a six horse wagon this time and it made it easier to drive the heavy load. Many eyes were seeing him now, but he kept flashing credentials, dropping bribes, they let him continue without delays.
Endarlatsa Spain, May 2, 1917; we crossed the Bidasoa River and the border into France here, there was no guard post, no one to stop us way out here.
Port Vieux, May 29, 1917; the man in blue hired a ship, the whole ship all to himself. I saw it this time, he pulled out a small bag, I could hear the contents rattling as dumped them into his hand. I’ve seen a few gems that he handed to the man on the ship, they were big. I watched as he put the half-full bag back into in his pocket, there were seven other unopened bags in there, I saw them.
London England, June 12, 1917; while out to sea sixteen men on the ship were killed when they tried to start a mutiny, they found the crates and what was in them. The man in blue killed their leader himself. In London the crates were offloaded and stored in an old warehouse in Westminster just off Millbank, by the docks. I didn’t get to go inside, I had to stay in the wagon.
London England, June 14, 1917; I sneaked away from the man in blue, I didn’t see him for many years.
There is more stuff on what she did and where she lived, it looked like she was looking for someone that had a talent for thievery and she needed him to have men of his own, it was all because this stuff was heavy.
London England, October 25, 1921; she found her man, she was working him, making him think he’s in-charge. She’s feeding him knowledge, what she knew of her time with the man in blue. His men were actually another group of thieves, they were of much lower stature, they were ones that she could entice into doing things for her. She had done this before and she had expected that she could do it again. She opened up to them of a great cache of items, jewels and golden items that made their eyes open wide. As they leaned in to hear more, she said that there were several items in a warehouse down by the pier that needed a liberation from their current owner. She continued and soon they were all hyped up enough to try this endeavor, even letting them think that they had come up with a plan on retrieving the items, which of course she did, letting them decide on the ruse.
It started with surveillance of the location in short sessions with all of the thieves spending an hour or two in the area, casing the area. They returned and exchanged views and the next night it was done.
London England, October 27, 1921; The structure was easy to enter, and this bothered some, just too easy. They knew the plan, a stairway brought them to the second floor and an office littered with crates. The actual was more of a shaky trip to the top of the old and decaying stairwell. Then quietly moving several pieces of old furniture that was draped over but also covered in many layers of dust themselves. There were many glances around the six men and at the one woman that was with them. You could see them thinking that this was looking like a big fat bust, a couple were getting angry. The office was reached in a short time, that included clearing the layers of debris that was blocking the door. The door opened outwards, which was odd. You would expect that the door would open inward as outward it caused more debris removal, maybe that was the plan. With the open door it was realized why it was like this. There was a crate that was much bigger than the door blocking most of the opening. It was a small gap above the crate, not even big enough to let Mouse in.
The thieving minds of the group took a moment to see the situation. Two when back to the stairway to keep an eye on their exit. Two went forward trudging through more obstacles to see if there was another way. Mouse was inspecting the door blockage and saw it first, on the rear of the crate he saw distinct rubbing on the crate where the door frame was. More than would be possible is the crate was just sat there. Mouse even said it looks like it was rubbed on many times. Then mouse and the others leaned their weight onto the crate back, it rocked forward a little. Not much but enough for Mouse to squeeze thru. The others were called back and someone set a block under the crate leaning forward so the gap as it was could be maintained. They tried pushing more hoping that the crate would just fall over but could not get anymore. Mouse made it through, but it looks like she was standing behind everyone wanted to try to get through. She wasn’t going to make it dressed as she was so she partially stripped off most of her clothing and dropped it on the floor leaving on a thin undergarment. The men noticed everything and I am sure that some even make it harder for her to get pass them to get to the door. She took all in pride because she was going through the gap one way or another. There were many who said that they would assist her to get through, in the end she let Mouse drag her over the crate, many hands were on her from behind her, well below her hips. She endured.
She was in the room now. The light was dim, the dust heavy, almost too heavy. She touched the dust and it had a grit to it, this wasn’t right. Rubbing it between her fingers she was right, this is not dust. It is light and airy like dust but it was not dust, it was more like a fine sawdust. Mouse stated that it is the same outside on the hallway, gritty. Fake dust, she never heard of it before, now she has. With mouse in tow she went to the rear of the room. With Mouse’s help, they toppled over three crates large enough to have a human sized statue in, they were heavy enough. This exposed another that was similar in size but laying horizontal. It was not as heavy, but it smelled like something died in it. They weren’t wrong as they slid the crate over the toppled crates and the one broke open. A man was in it, a dead man. He was not very big, Mouse sized. And he was in a very nasty state of decay, more than a year stated Mouse. He was not too bothered by the scene, the woman almost turned over her stomach on the spot. She once again regained. She and Mouse could now see three crates, smaller ones that were under the coffin crate. You could see that Mouse was wondering just how she knew about these crates and exactly where they were. It was obvious that she has seen the crates before, there were Russian markings on them still. “That’s them” she stated. They were heavy, even heavy for Mouse. Both of them strained and retrieved one crate at a time, moving it over the dead body and up to the gap. Now the gap was too small for the crate to fit, and it bothered the four outside the room. One of them had started rummaging around the building and had found a couple it items. One very old crosscut saw with barely a cutting edge and many bags of a substance that resembled the dust laying all over, the fake dust. The saw was brought upstairs and used to cut part of the corner of the crate to create a larger gap. It took time and made some noise that all didn’t want at all right now, it was necessary. But eventually the opening was completed, the first crate was maneuvered and passed down to the others outside the office.
One of the thieves took the first box and returned to the hideout, which was all according to plan. He took the easy route down the sewage river in a boat. This took more time but was easy in the dead of the night.
The next crate was dragged over to the gap and dropped down to the men on the other side. This one was much more heavy, it took two to carry it. They worked their way out of the building and took the second path, many more corners and alleys, never using any roadway, but ending up in the same building outside of town.
The third crate was also as heavy, especially on the one end. Mouse traded sides with the woman and they proceeded to slide the crate over to the gap. This was Mouse’s side. It was a little more morbid than the other side she was on, many entrails were on the floor of the deceased making it a slippery route. They eventually got the third crate over to the top of the large crate and through the enlarged gap and others took off with it. Mouse was ready to go through the gap when he saw the woman go back to look below the crates that they just retrieved. He saw her put her hand down into the area now devoid of crates and retrieved a pouch of some sort, it was the half-used small bag from the man in blue. She recognized it immediately and she stuffed it down her cleavage immediately, not even taking a moment to see what was inside, she knew what was inside. Mouse watched the whole event right before he slipped through the gap to the hallway. He held up his hands through the gap to assist the woman through. She went slowly through the opening and a glint of metal caught her eye. She asked for Mouse to hold for a moment. She was looking through the larger gap and she could faintly see something gold, and it was big. Squinting she thought that she could see a part of a lion’s head, it looked to be made of GOLD. Mouse still holding onto her legs could not hold her up any longer and she came down with a thud on top of him. They pushed on the crate to clear the wedge under the crate but the others had pounded it into location, making it difficult to remove, they needed a hammer or something like that to get it out. Mouse looked around and had the idea that we needed to return everything to its original state buried and dusty, there was plenty to make it look similar to what they saw earlier. He closed the door and slid the items back in place, then he carried a burlap bag of fake dust upstairs and slowly placed items back to kind of where they found them and dusted them with this light sawdust material. There was a problem, it seems that one of the steps had collapsed from one of the men carrying a crate down the stairs. Mouse grabbed a log section from below and set it gently on the step so to hide the damage. The log was almost too large to stay in location and it took him a minute to get it to stop rocking in-place. He dusted everything, made it look real good. Then Mouse and the woman backed out of the building and closed the door. Mouse flung the bag further down the alley and took the woman’s arm as to be walking with her.
Then it happened. There was a noise from behind them, it was back in the building that they just left. Mouse mumbled “The block”, they forgot to find the hammer to remove the block. He looked at the woman and left her arm and returned back to the alley doorway. He turned to her and gave her a finger to his lips and a back handed shushing move to let her know to keep on going. She did, but as she turned the corner to the main street and started walking away from the scene a commotion started behind her, there were gunshots. She continued onto the hideout and entered through the back door, like all did before them. All of the crates were there on the table in the room. She told them of Mouse and what happened including the sound of gunfire. They grieved and waited for a sign of Mouse to enter the hideout, it never happened.
After a short time they got curious and starting opening the crates. They opened rather hard like someone did not want these crates to be opened, strong Russian construction. All they first could see was straw in them, they continued until the last crate was opened, the heaviest one, there was a corner of what looked to be a cloth of some sort. The woman touched it and said, “silk”. Eyes opened widely, nobody packs with silk unless it is silk worthy. Straw was gently moved away and yes it was something wrapped in silk, it was the same in the other crates. The items were drawn from the crate and unwrapped. Now this was a darkened room but when this first item was unveiled it lit up the room. It was a Tiera made with many diamonds and tear-dropped pearls.
All around started looking between each other, “We are in a lot of trouble”, said one of the men. The rest of the contents were shortly unwrapped to find many pieces of jewelry, necklaces, broaches, rings, bracelets and one crate, the lightest one had six bags of gems. There were diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires in cut and roughcut form. A kings fortune just in gems. The five men each grabbed a bag of gems. Drake, the lead thief here, took the last one and said that he would give it to Mouse when they next see him, he was speaking as if he would be soon returning. All men nodded in approval. As for the gemstones and the all of the rest, it was not safe. There was nothing that was small, everything had size, which would make it difficult to get rid of here in this town. They would have to separate and go in different directions, each with part of the booty. They spoke of getting together in a designated place years from now, they could talk about the tough times and this extraordinary event, the theft of all time.
The woman, still with the unseen bag stuffed down her cleavage was listening nearby. She was dressed and showed herself like she was a common whore from a local saloon, she was cute, definitely not dressed like a proper city woman. So just being a woman and looking like a commoner, she was not given any share of the loot. The men in this little party just made it out like she would be accompanying one of them out of here with their share. She wanted better out of this situation and awaited her chance. What she found in the office were her findings, that was her tip for the event, she would not show it off unless there was a need to. Mouse was the only one that saw her grab the bag, there’s something here about if he shows up, she almost was sure that she would not see him again, but just in case, she had an alibi, but why?
The journal said that hours were passing by and she knew that she had better make her move. She got close to the leader of this group, very close as she loved him until he passed out from too much drinking. And as he slept she grabbed Mouse’s bag of gemstones and left, not wanting to be too advantageous or demeaning. She had a safe house, actually it was a leaking attic, but it was where she could hide if needed. In her stash of items was a piece of luggage that she stole from a woman on the dock a little over a year ago. It held two dresses for a middle class person of this age. She put on the light brown one and put anything else she owned in the luggage. She made it down to the street level, time was short as she looked to the docks, the ship she saw earlier was still there with smoke billowing out of the smokestacks, she knew it was leaving on the first tide of the morning. It was a few tense moments later and she was at the dock awaiting to board a boat to Sweden. She had purchased the ticket with one of the gems, the smallest one in her bag. It was still as large as her fingernail, a marquise cut diamond. The ticket master grabbed it and pushed the ticket into her hands and closed the window immediately afterwards.
Right at that moment she was near the docks and the robbery room, this bothered her. Eventually she got her turn to step onto the boat, and a commotion began up the street behind her. Looking over her shoulder she could see Mouse on his knees in the street. He was bloodied and it looked like his head was swollen from multiple hits. One of the men, a taller man in a familiar blue suit, pulled out a gun and shot Mouse in the head. Mouse crumbled to the street, he was dead. The man in the blue suit, he was her owner, she quickly turned away and stepped onto the ship. He didn’t look any different, she on the other hand had grown up, she resembled her younger self but that was all. She didn’t look back again for fear of the man in the blues suit seeing her, somehow recognizing her. The ship left port about an hour later, she was below deck pacing back and forth in her room the whole time hoping that no one would find her on the ship. Then the relief came when she looked out the window and saw the dock leaving her view from the portal in the wall. She never returned to England again, but she soon found out that misery would find her again.
The theft was acknowledged in local newspapers within a day. There were now others looking for them. Not only police forces of the day but other thieves were looking to find this group, and some of the other thieves actually knew them.
She read in the papers that the many necklaces and bracelets were disassembled into chunks of the golden chain and the loose gems that they held. All of the thieves of the group were arrested within a month traveling with the items trying to sell them along the way, which some were successful. The loot that was left was collected and taken to England back to the man in blue and nothing more was ever mentioned about the theft.
As she understood it, the Queen of England had purchased the Tiera in winter of 1921 and later ordered the removal of all the pearls from it and to replace it with emeralds. The Tiera is the Vladimir Tiera.
My Journal #3.
The grandmother ran to Sweden with an emerald that was sizable. We are talking about a 100CT gemstone or greater here. She had tried twice to sell it and the police were called both times almost catching her in these attempts. She traveled around Sweden for years, with someone always on her trail. It was the man in the blue suit that shot Mouse, he went to work alongside of the local police forces to catch this thief woman, but it failed every time. Eventually she could not keep running in Sweden and she left for America.
Duke Center Pennsylvania, March 13, 1927; Now this woman was very fluent in English and Swedish by now. And upon arrival in America, and only speaking in Swedish, she made her was to the only man in a small town of Duke Center Pennsylvania that could speak Swedish and married him. The man was a lone father to six children whose wife had passed away, he was a good father.
Now her follower, the man in blue was still on her trail and did make it to Duke Center to try to locate her, she saw him immediately. But all he saw was a woman that had a small resemblance of the girl he once knew who was taking care of six children with another on the way from her new husband. Thinking that this could not be the woman that he was after with all of these children, he left. That was the last time that she ever saw him. She had a total of six children with the Swedish man bringing the total to twelve children over the next ten years. But through all of this, she still had the rock hidden away. A rock that was worth possible a one hundred thousand dollars or more at the time. And she couldn’t collect on it or even show it for fear of someone finding and arresting her, it was always in the back of her mind.
Now back to the seventeen-year-old girl, a naive simplistic girl just out of high school with no real understanding of how the real world works. The now deceased grandmother told her that the stone had a curse upon it as it only brought misery to her. She was carrying this object with her all of her life, something worth more that she could have imagined but was starving most of the time having to travel and steal to keep ahead of those that were behind her. Her life improved after she married the Swedish man but she stated that it was because she never brought up the stone or even showed it. She kept it hidden, until this moment. The young girl was in her young twenties now, she was cleaning up her room and came across the gem once again, it filled her palm and part of her fingers, it was huge and almost glowing green. The rock was a rectangular cut stone with an interesting display of sparkling facets. She remembered that the grandmother who asked the girl to hide it, hide it someplace good. Do not ever bring it out and show anyone. She knew that if she did the misery would extend to her. It seems that the young woman took the gemstone and put it in her own pocket, disregarding any warnings and for a week nothing went right for her. Problem after problem happened daily. She attributed it to the stone, it truly was cursed.
In the end, she went back and put the stone into the apron pocket of her doll. Then wanting to be rid of it she sneaked up to her youngest brother’s room. In there was a shell casing that was pulled from the last shell assembly line, it was empty in the interior and a back door was cut into it. She opened it up and stuffed the doll and a few other rags into the top of the casing. This held it in place and she felt that this was a good hiding place for now. A few years later she went back to her old home to visit. The room that held her brother’s items had been cleaned out as he went to college. She asked around and they said that everything, including the two foot tall shell casing was tossed on the dump. She recalled her brother saying that when he tossed it onto the dump that he remembered it rolling all the way to the bottom of the ravine that was being used for the dump at that time. The dump was covered and closed in the late 1960’s. Being a brass shell casing it was probably still in good shape at the bottom of the dump. And I would bet that the rock is still sitting in the dolls pocket inside of the shell.’
The young girl was my mother who is now in her late 80’s, who passed this story along to me.
As for the Emerald, I thought it was still sitting at the bottom of the ravine covered by about one hundred feet of decomposing garbage. I could still see where the old dump had been in town, it can still be seen as the road is still there. There are approximately eight sites that garbage was dumped upon on the area. It looks like as one filled up they moved it to the next ravine. The road is still there splitting off to each site at a dead end.
Let me elaborate on this. The rock, mined from South America most likely, was retrieved by making slave labor of the locals, a common event in the 1500’s. They dug it up with many others up, then they killed the slaves (and any others) to hide the source of the gemstones. These great gems were scattered across all of the European countries, used in many crowns and jewelry of the time. They were all cursed by the indigenous tribes that they killed to dig them out of the ground. Many found out about this cursing and got rid of them, others embraced them and collected them. This particular gem was taken into to Russia at some time in the past. With much of the treasure that was in Russia being sold to the Queen of England.
I do not have any speculation of this event other than the information that I received from my mother that she received from her Grandmother. All the time, this stone was imprinted with evil and misery. As this was all that it passed along to the owners of it, misery. And I would expect that it is still this way today. Do I want to try to find it? Absolutely not! I do not want the misery that comes with it. Even if you were to find it, major expenditure to do this, and sell it, to make some profits on the cost of digging it up, it will still bring misery as the money may also be tainted and may be totally used up just to excavate it, that is if it was still there. So, leave this item be unless you are an STS soul that needs more misery in their life.
A Wikipedia comment on the Queen’s jewels. “The origin of a distinct royal jewel collection is vague, though it is believed the jewels have their origin somewhere in the 16th century. Many of the pieces are from overseas and were brought to the United Kingdom as a result of civil war, coups and revolutions, or acquired as gifts to the monarch. [1] Most of the jewelry dates from the 19th and 20th centuries.”
I believe that this crown was the Vladimir tiara, and this stone was with it when it was brought into England. An art dealer, the man in blue, was the one that recovered the items that were hidden in Russia and sold it to the queen.
The man in blue was the one that followed my great grandmother to America. Only this individual knew exactly what was in the crates that were originally stolen. How this art dealer was able to ‘Recover’ these items, not to mention knowing where they were stored in the castle, is suspicious. But you know, there is great profit to be made when others are in misery. Heck they probably wanted this man in blue to take the stuff just to get themselves out of the misery that accompanies them. This is about the time that Russia came back to life from revolution, in the early 1920’s. Maybe there is a connection here. So, we have an art dealer, that during the 1917 Russia revolution made off with a cache of items that included the tiara, which he sold a portion of to the Queen of England for a fair sum of money. Now that does not sound too fishy, does it?
But the Vladimir Tiara and other crowns of this timeline were made with blood covered gemstones. Emeralds like this one came from South America. The souls of many were taken to acquire these gemstones and may still connect to them. And then there are those that have and those that want, this is how wars are started, and the spoils go to the victor or the advantageous thief in this case. I would guess that is why England got them in the end. Just having them in the beginning was possibly an effect on why they lost them. If you are wanting this kind of an item, watch out. You may be in for more misery than you expect once you have it.
I always wondered why a country has so many jewels and crowns that sit under glass and over a river that rarely get worn at all? Now I wonder if the nearby water helps contain the evil in them. It might allow them to be worn without too much effect on the wearer.
As for the Queen of England, she wore this tiara for an event before her death, so did Diana. I saw Camellia wearing it a little while back. I wouldn’t wear it, would you?
It is five years since my mother died, I mentioned this subject again to her before she died, and the story changed a little. She believes that one of her brothers now has the gemstone and it makes sense. This brother, he has owned a ten-story furniture store in Olean, New York for many years now, since I was a kid. It was a failure operation as the top six floors were rotted, any expensive product that was up there was wrote off because he couldn’t retrieve it to sell it. He has been part of several failed endeavors and lives in the family house in Duke Center, a three-story house in oil country. It has a cellar that is underwater, thick smelly oily water, all year long and some years you have to dig out of the house from the top floor door because of the snow drifts, you had to dig ten to fifteen feet up to get out, I saw pictures. This brother has been in misery all his life that I have known him, he is still alive, and I suspect he is still sitting on the gem as I finish this write-up today. Haiku …
It was the late 1950’s in rural Pennsylvania, A young woman of 17 was taking care of her grandmother in the family's historic home. As it was, the grandmother was a world traveler in the 1900-1927 who visited many European countries. She was also known as a thief of that time. She had traveled from England to Sweden in this time and because of her extracurricular actives, was constantly followed by police forces of the realm. Word had it that she had picked up an item that had a high intrinsic value, it was why many legit and illegit people were after her for all of those years.
The two of them were in the living room, the grandmother in the family rocking chair, the young woman knelling beside her. She pulled an item from her pocket, a silk handkerchief that was folded to cover an item. The fabric was old, it had tears and stains on it from many years covering the item. She continued to pull each flap of silk away one by one until you could see a gemstone. Not just any stone but a cut emerald, it was almost two inches long and rectangular in shape. The facets were brilliant with a color that made the young girls eyes open in awe of the gem. Of course, the young woman new absolutely nothing about the value of this item and was quite naïve of real world and how it existed, the grandmother fully understood this, it was why she chose this young girl for this need.
What she wanted her to do was to hide the gemstone so it would never be found. She wrapped up the gem and set it upon two leather bound books and thrust them all into the young woman’s hands. The grandmother gave her one warning, she said to never carry the gem at any time, it only brings misery. Put it someplace where it will never be found, ever again.
“What about the books”, the young woman asked.
“Do with them as you wish, I want to forget everything in them.” She returned. “Go put them in your room, scurry off now.”
The young woman took the books and gem up to her bedroom just as her grandmother said. In her room she opened up the gem again to inspect it. It was the most beautiful item that she had ever seen. She felt it and an shiver drew up her back, it was like the gem was responding to her. She remembered the words of her grandmother and what to do with it. She started by wrapping up the gem in the silk and then stashing the wrapped gemstone in her old dolls apron pocket. It had a ceramic head and was her first doll that her father ever gave to her, she loved this doll for many years when she was younger. Now it held a treasure beyond description. She set it with seven others she had sitting on a shelf.
Her attention turned to the books, one much older than the other, both had no writing on the outside. In fact, they look kind of like a journal than a bound book. She opened the older one and she was right, it was a journal. But she couldn’t understand what was written in it, it was some foreign language. She wasn’t going to read them, at least not yet, she didn’t even know what language that they were in. She closed the journal and put both of them with the rest of her books.
Upon returning downstairs she found out that the grandmother had left suddenly. She barely hugged her daughter, the young woman’s mother, and she hustled out the door. The grandmother never returned again, she was put in a convalescent home and passed away less than a year later.
The journals …
The young girl of seventeen grew up and at an age of forty-nine she came across someone that could translate them for her, these are the notes she took as the story unfolded.
‘Book 2, Petrograd, Russia, March 5, 1917
I don’t have a lot of time, the war is coming to an end, it looks like Russians were going to lose or they were predicted to lose. It is difficult to say but I do believe they knew this was going to happen whether they wanted it or not, it was predisposed by someone much higher than the government here.
I am with the man in blue still, he married me at age 9. I have become his attachment, not his wife as he still has not touched me. He is not interested in physical love, he loves money. I am just an element of his life, just there for the look of being attached to him, nothing more. He takes me everywhere, he dresses me, he feeds me, well most of the time. I am 16 now. I am not his trophy wife, just a necessity of his life.
He is the thief with major authority as he holds a major lands-right in England. Right now he is looking at stealing the royal jewels from Russia, nobody else seems to know this.
Petrograd, Russia, March 6, 1917; I am with the man in blue, we are in a cottage outside of Petrograd, there are a dozen other men here, they were the bullies and trash of the town, absolute scoundrels you wouldn’t normally trust, they were nothing more than fall guys to him. He was planning a heist, one that would take a large assortment of treasures out of the country. The intent was to hide them until the heat calmed or he could find a reputable buyer that would keep their mouth shut over their origin, his plan was for the latter.
Petrograd, Russia, March 7, 1917; She was sent into town with one of the bruisers, the man in blue said it would be less suspicious with me there. The bruiser bought two four-horse wagons from the stable and with my help we brought them back to the cottage. While we were gone the rest of the men were busy, they had been building crates, lots of crates. When we arrived they piled them high on the wagons, so high she thought that they might hit the bridges as they passed beneath them, but they just cleared. We are in town now, the roughest part of town. The man in blue said that we are waiting here for morning, this place that we are staying in for the night is filthy, it was an old, abandoned pig farm, she slept on the wagons seat for this night, the rest stayed in the barn or the house with the man in blue.
Petrograd, Russia, March 8, 1917; It was early, hours before sunup, the fog hadn’t even lifted yet. It gave an eerie look to the world this morning. You could hear the war, it was close now, and the time was ripe for some behind the scenes thievery, take advantage of the war situation. Men on horses and the two wagons made it through town to a gated cellar door below the castle, a trickle of water could be seen running out through it.
The gate had a lock on it, a new one, the man in blue had the key and it unlocked with ease, he had prepared it for opening. Then came the hard part as it took four men to bend the rusted gate structure out of the way enough for all of the crates to enter.
She was told to stay on the wagon for an alarm in case someone showed up, there wasn’t thank goodness. But crates were unloaded and carried into the darkness, it took three trips. An hour passed, there was no commotion to indicate an issue, but they were taking too much time. An explosion happened about three blocks away, smoke and sparks could be seen billowing up in the night. And night was starting to end as the sun was coming up, a soft glow could be seen on the horizon.
It was then that the crates started coming out, one after another and they were heavy as the wagons sunk with every crates loading. I am on the first wagon, it just got done being loaded. The man in blue jumped up into the seat pushing me aside. He snapped the whip at the horses and they took off dragging the heavy load behind them. I looked back and the rest of the men were loading the second wagon, they were half done and there was a commotion. I could see lights coming from inside the tunnel, men were arriving, other torches were coming down the hill outside the castle. The fog hid the rest. It seems that she didn’t see any of those men ever again.
Troitsk Tponuk, Russia, March 10, 1917; two of the horses died today, all four were replaced by the man in blue as a precaution. He paid the man with a single gem, it was a golden color. The stable man took it and bit down upon it to make sure it was real, it was. With the gold jewel in his hand he dropped the reins of the horses and walked away paying full attention to the gem he held. I figure that it was worth ten times what the horses were worth, hopefully it will also keep him quiet from the transaction.
Kazakhstan, just across the border, March 11, 1917; there were four men there, they had a second wagon and split the crate load between the two of them. The one that I am on still feels heavier, the more important part of the load I bet, the second wagon had the larger crates. We are traveling south-east for a while then splitting up and heading on separate paths south-west. In case one was caught the other might still get through to the Black Sea where he had a boat waiting in Sochi Cohn.
There is a lot of stuff on what they ate and slept as it took them weeks to get to the black sea. Their wagon was the first one to arrive, as expected, but the second one arrived three days later. I got to sleep with the food stuffs on the ship, and as long as I kept out of the way nobody seemed to noticed me. the crates were stashed below deck with an armed guard on them full time, the man in blue he didn’t trust anyone as he kept an eye on the guard the whole trip to Spain. We off-loaded in Noja, the man in blue got a six horse wagon this time and it made it easier to drive the heavy load. Many eyes were seeing him now, but he kept flashing credentials, dropping bribes, they let him continue without delays.
Endarlatsa Spain, May 2, 1917; we crossed the Bidasoa River and the border into France here, there was no guard post, no one to stop us way out here.
Port Vieux, May 29, 1917; the man in blue hired a ship, the whole ship all to himself. I saw it this time, he pulled out a small bag, I could hear the contents rattling as dumped them into his hand. I’ve seen a few gems that he handed to the man on the ship, they were big. I watched as he put the half-full bag back into in his pocket, there were seven other unopened bags in there, I saw them.
London England, June 12, 1917; while out to sea sixteen men on the ship were killed when they tried to start a mutiny, they found the crates and what was in them. The man in blue killed their leader himself. In London the crates were offloaded and stored in an old warehouse in Westminster just off Millbank, by the docks. I didn’t get to go inside, I had to stay in the wagon.
London England, June 14, 1917; I sneaked away from the man in blue, I didn’t see him for many years.
There is more stuff on what she did and where she lived, it looked like she was looking for someone that had a talent for thievery and she needed him to have men of his own, it was all because this stuff was heavy.
London England, October 25, 1921; she found her man, she was working him, making him think he’s in-charge. She’s feeding him knowledge, what she knew of her time with the man in blue. His men were actually another group of thieves, they were of much lower stature, they were ones that she could entice into doing things for her. She had done this before and she had expected that she could do it again. She opened up to them of a great cache of items, jewels and golden items that made their eyes open wide. As they leaned in to hear more, she said that there were several items in a warehouse down by the pier that needed a liberation from their current owner. She continued and soon they were all hyped up enough to try this endeavor, even letting them think that they had come up with a plan on retrieving the items, which of course she did, letting them decide on the ruse.
It started with surveillance of the location in short sessions with all of the thieves spending an hour or two in the area, casing the area. They returned and exchanged views and the next night it was done.
London England, October 27, 1921; The structure was easy to enter, and this bothered some, just too easy. They knew the plan, a stairway brought them to the second floor and an office littered with crates. The actual was more of a shaky trip to the top of the old and decaying stairwell. Then quietly moving several pieces of old furniture that was draped over but also covered in many layers of dust themselves. There were many glances around the six men and at the one woman that was with them. You could see them thinking that this was looking like a big fat bust, a couple were getting angry. The office was reached in a short time, that included clearing the layers of debris that was blocking the door. The door opened outwards, which was odd. You would expect that the door would open inward as outward it caused more debris removal, maybe that was the plan. With the open door it was realized why it was like this. There was a crate that was much bigger than the door blocking most of the opening. It was a small gap above the crate, not even big enough to let Mouse in.
The thieving minds of the group took a moment to see the situation. Two when back to the stairway to keep an eye on their exit. Two went forward trudging through more obstacles to see if there was another way. Mouse was inspecting the door blockage and saw it first, on the rear of the crate he saw distinct rubbing on the crate where the door frame was. More than would be possible is the crate was just sat there. Mouse even said it looks like it was rubbed on many times. Then mouse and the others leaned their weight onto the crate back, it rocked forward a little. Not much but enough for Mouse to squeeze thru. The others were called back and someone set a block under the crate leaning forward so the gap as it was could be maintained. They tried pushing more hoping that the crate would just fall over but could not get anymore. Mouse made it through, but it looks like she was standing behind everyone wanted to try to get through. She wasn’t going to make it dressed as she was so she partially stripped off most of her clothing and dropped it on the floor leaving on a thin undergarment. The men noticed everything and I am sure that some even make it harder for her to get pass them to get to the door. She took all in pride because she was going through the gap one way or another. There were many who said that they would assist her to get through, in the end she let Mouse drag her over the crate, many hands were on her from behind her, well below her hips. She endured.
She was in the room now. The light was dim, the dust heavy, almost too heavy. She touched the dust and it had a grit to it, this wasn’t right. Rubbing it between her fingers she was right, this is not dust. It is light and airy like dust but it was not dust, it was more like a fine sawdust. Mouse stated that it is the same outside on the hallway, gritty. Fake dust, she never heard of it before, now she has. With mouse in tow she went to the rear of the room. With Mouse’s help, they toppled over three crates large enough to have a human sized statue in, they were heavy enough. This exposed another that was similar in size but laying horizontal. It was not as heavy, but it smelled like something died in it. They weren’t wrong as they slid the crate over the toppled crates and the one broke open. A man was in it, a dead man. He was not very big, Mouse sized. And he was in a very nasty state of decay, more than a year stated Mouse. He was not too bothered by the scene, the woman almost turned over her stomach on the spot. She once again regained. She and Mouse could now see three crates, smaller ones that were under the coffin crate. You could see that Mouse was wondering just how she knew about these crates and exactly where they were. It was obvious that she has seen the crates before, there were Russian markings on them still. “That’s them” she stated. They were heavy, even heavy for Mouse. Both of them strained and retrieved one crate at a time, moving it over the dead body and up to the gap. Now the gap was too small for the crate to fit, and it bothered the four outside the room. One of them had started rummaging around the building and had found a couple it items. One very old crosscut saw with barely a cutting edge and many bags of a substance that resembled the dust laying all over, the fake dust. The saw was brought upstairs and used to cut part of the corner of the crate to create a larger gap. It took time and made some noise that all didn’t want at all right now, it was necessary. But eventually the opening was completed, the first crate was maneuvered and passed down to the others outside the office.
One of the thieves took the first box and returned to the hideout, which was all according to plan. He took the easy route down the sewage river in a boat. This took more time but was easy in the dead of the night.
The next crate was dragged over to the gap and dropped down to the men on the other side. This one was much more heavy, it took two to carry it. They worked their way out of the building and took the second path, many more corners and alleys, never using any roadway, but ending up in the same building outside of town.
The third crate was also as heavy, especially on the one end. Mouse traded sides with the woman and they proceeded to slide the crate over to the gap. This was Mouse’s side. It was a little more morbid than the other side she was on, many entrails were on the floor of the deceased making it a slippery route. They eventually got the third crate over to the top of the large crate and through the enlarged gap and others took off with it. Mouse was ready to go through the gap when he saw the woman go back to look below the crates that they just retrieved. He saw her put her hand down into the area now devoid of crates and retrieved a pouch of some sort, it was the half-used small bag from the man in blue. She recognized it immediately and she stuffed it down her cleavage immediately, not even taking a moment to see what was inside, she knew what was inside. Mouse watched the whole event right before he slipped through the gap to the hallway. He held up his hands through the gap to assist the woman through. She went slowly through the opening and a glint of metal caught her eye. She asked for Mouse to hold for a moment. She was looking through the larger gap and she could faintly see something gold, and it was big. Squinting she thought that she could see a part of a lion’s head, it looked to be made of GOLD. Mouse still holding onto her legs could not hold her up any longer and she came down with a thud on top of him. They pushed on the crate to clear the wedge under the crate but the others had pounded it into location, making it difficult to remove, they needed a hammer or something like that to get it out. Mouse looked around and had the idea that we needed to return everything to its original state buried and dusty, there was plenty to make it look similar to what they saw earlier. He closed the door and slid the items back in place, then he carried a burlap bag of fake dust upstairs and slowly placed items back to kind of where they found them and dusted them with this light sawdust material. There was a problem, it seems that one of the steps had collapsed from one of the men carrying a crate down the stairs. Mouse grabbed a log section from below and set it gently on the step so to hide the damage. The log was almost too large to stay in location and it took him a minute to get it to stop rocking in-place. He dusted everything, made it look real good. Then Mouse and the woman backed out of the building and closed the door. Mouse flung the bag further down the alley and took the woman’s arm as to be walking with her.
Then it happened. There was a noise from behind them, it was back in the building that they just left. Mouse mumbled “The block”, they forgot to find the hammer to remove the block. He looked at the woman and left her arm and returned back to the alley doorway. He turned to her and gave her a finger to his lips and a back handed shushing move to let her know to keep on going. She did, but as she turned the corner to the main street and started walking away from the scene a commotion started behind her, there were gunshots. She continued onto the hideout and entered through the back door, like all did before them. All of the crates were there on the table in the room. She told them of Mouse and what happened including the sound of gunfire. They grieved and waited for a sign of Mouse to enter the hideout, it never happened.
After a short time they got curious and starting opening the crates. They opened rather hard like someone did not want these crates to be opened, strong Russian construction. All they first could see was straw in them, they continued until the last crate was opened, the heaviest one, there was a corner of what looked to be a cloth of some sort. The woman touched it and said, “silk”. Eyes opened widely, nobody packs with silk unless it is silk worthy. Straw was gently moved away and yes it was something wrapped in silk, it was the same in the other crates. The items were drawn from the crate and unwrapped. Now this was a darkened room but when this first item was unveiled it lit up the room. It was a Tiera made with many diamonds and tear-dropped pearls.
All around started looking between each other, “We are in a lot of trouble”, said one of the men. The rest of the contents were shortly unwrapped to find many pieces of jewelry, necklaces, broaches, rings, bracelets and one crate, the lightest one had six bags of gems. There were diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires in cut and roughcut form. A kings fortune just in gems. The five men each grabbed a bag of gems. Drake, the lead thief here, took the last one and said that he would give it to Mouse when they next see him, he was speaking as if he would be soon returning. All men nodded in approval. As for the gemstones and the all of the rest, it was not safe. There was nothing that was small, everything had size, which would make it difficult to get rid of here in this town. They would have to separate and go in different directions, each with part of the booty. They spoke of getting together in a designated place years from now, they could talk about the tough times and this extraordinary event, the theft of all time.
The woman, still with the unseen bag stuffed down her cleavage was listening nearby. She was dressed and showed herself like she was a common whore from a local saloon, she was cute, definitely not dressed like a proper city woman. So just being a woman and looking like a commoner, she was not given any share of the loot. The men in this little party just made it out like she would be accompanying one of them out of here with their share. She wanted better out of this situation and awaited her chance. What she found in the office were her findings, that was her tip for the event, she would not show it off unless there was a need to. Mouse was the only one that saw her grab the bag, there’s something here about if he shows up, she almost was sure that she would not see him again, but just in case, she had an alibi, but why?
The journal said that hours were passing by and she knew that she had better make her move. She got close to the leader of this group, very close as she loved him until he passed out from too much drinking. And as he slept she grabbed Mouse’s bag of gemstones and left, not wanting to be too advantageous or demeaning. She had a safe house, actually it was a leaking attic, but it was where she could hide if needed. In her stash of items was a piece of luggage that she stole from a woman on the dock a little over a year ago. It held two dresses for a middle class person of this age. She put on the light brown one and put anything else she owned in the luggage. She made it down to the street level, time was short as she looked to the docks, the ship she saw earlier was still there with smoke billowing out of the smokestacks, she knew it was leaving on the first tide of the morning. It was a few tense moments later and she was at the dock awaiting to board a boat to Sweden. She had purchased the ticket with one of the gems, the smallest one in her bag. It was still as large as her fingernail, a marquise cut diamond. The ticket master grabbed it and pushed the ticket into her hands and closed the window immediately afterwards.
Right at that moment she was near the docks and the robbery room, this bothered her. Eventually she got her turn to step onto the boat, and a commotion began up the street behind her. Looking over her shoulder she could see Mouse on his knees in the street. He was bloodied and it looked like his head was swollen from multiple hits. One of the men, a taller man in a familiar blue suit, pulled out a gun and shot Mouse in the head. Mouse crumbled to the street, he was dead. The man in the blue suit, he was her owner, she quickly turned away and stepped onto the ship. He didn’t look any different, she on the other hand had grown up, she resembled her younger self but that was all. She didn’t look back again for fear of the man in the blues suit seeing her, somehow recognizing her. The ship left port about an hour later, she was below deck pacing back and forth in her room the whole time hoping that no one would find her on the ship. Then the relief came when she looked out the window and saw the dock leaving her view from the portal in the wall. She never returned to England again, but she soon found out that misery would find her again.
The theft was acknowledged in local newspapers within a day. There were now others looking for them. Not only police forces of the day but other thieves were looking to find this group, and some of the other thieves actually knew them.
She read in the papers that the many necklaces and bracelets were disassembled into chunks of the golden chain and the loose gems that they held. All of the thieves of the group were arrested within a month traveling with the items trying to sell them along the way, which some were successful. The loot that was left was collected and taken to England back to the man in blue and nothing more was ever mentioned about the theft.
As she understood it, the Queen of England had purchased the Tiera in winter of 1921 and later ordered the removal of all the pearls from it and to replace it with emeralds. The Tiera is the Vladimir Tiera.
My Journal #3.
The grandmother ran to Sweden with an emerald that was sizable. We are talking about a 100CT gemstone or greater here. She had tried twice to sell it and the police were called both times almost catching her in these attempts. She traveled around Sweden for years, with someone always on her trail. It was the man in the blue suit that shot Mouse, he went to work alongside of the local police forces to catch this thief woman, but it failed every time. Eventually she could not keep running in Sweden and she left for America.
Duke Center Pennsylvania, March 13, 1927; Now this woman was very fluent in English and Swedish by now. And upon arrival in America, and only speaking in Swedish, she made her was to the only man in a small town of Duke Center Pennsylvania that could speak Swedish and married him. The man was a lone father to six children whose wife had passed away, he was a good father.
Now her follower, the man in blue was still on her trail and did make it to Duke Center to try to locate her, she saw him immediately. But all he saw was a woman that had a small resemblance of the girl he once knew who was taking care of six children with another on the way from her new husband. Thinking that this could not be the woman that he was after with all of these children, he left. That was the last time that she ever saw him. She had a total of six children with the Swedish man bringing the total to twelve children over the next ten years. But through all of this, she still had the rock hidden away. A rock that was worth possible a one hundred thousand dollars or more at the time. And she couldn’t collect on it or even show it for fear of someone finding and arresting her, it was always in the back of her mind.
Now back to the seventeen-year-old girl, a naive simplistic girl just out of high school with no real understanding of how the real world works. The now deceased grandmother told her that the stone had a curse upon it as it only brought misery to her. She was carrying this object with her all of her life, something worth more that she could have imagined but was starving most of the time having to travel and steal to keep ahead of those that were behind her. Her life improved after she married the Swedish man but she stated that it was because she never brought up the stone or even showed it. She kept it hidden, until this moment. The young girl was in her young twenties now, she was cleaning up her room and came across the gem once again, it filled her palm and part of her fingers, it was huge and almost glowing green. The rock was a rectangular cut stone with an interesting display of sparkling facets. She remembered that the grandmother who asked the girl to hide it, hide it someplace good. Do not ever bring it out and show anyone. She knew that if she did the misery would extend to her. It seems that the young woman took the gemstone and put it in her own pocket, disregarding any warnings and for a week nothing went right for her. Problem after problem happened daily. She attributed it to the stone, it truly was cursed.
In the end, she went back and put the stone into the apron pocket of her doll. Then wanting to be rid of it she sneaked up to her youngest brother’s room. In there was a shell casing that was pulled from the last shell assembly line, it was empty in the interior and a back door was cut into it. She opened it up and stuffed the doll and a few other rags into the top of the casing. This held it in place and she felt that this was a good hiding place for now. A few years later she went back to her old home to visit. The room that held her brother’s items had been cleaned out as he went to college. She asked around and they said that everything, including the two foot tall shell casing was tossed on the dump. She recalled her brother saying that when he tossed it onto the dump that he remembered it rolling all the way to the bottom of the ravine that was being used for the dump at that time. The dump was covered and closed in the late 1960’s. Being a brass shell casing it was probably still in good shape at the bottom of the dump. And I would bet that the rock is still sitting in the dolls pocket inside of the shell.’
The young girl was my mother who is now in her late 80’s, who passed this story along to me.
As for the Emerald, I thought it was still sitting at the bottom of the ravine covered by about one hundred feet of decomposing garbage. I could still see where the old dump had been in town, it can still be seen as the road is still there. There are approximately eight sites that garbage was dumped upon on the area. It looks like as one filled up they moved it to the next ravine. The road is still there splitting off to each site at a dead end.
Let me elaborate on this. The rock, mined from South America most likely, was retrieved by making slave labor of the locals, a common event in the 1500’s. They dug it up with many others up, then they killed the slaves (and any others) to hide the source of the gemstones. These great gems were scattered across all of the European countries, used in many crowns and jewelry of the time. They were all cursed by the indigenous tribes that they killed to dig them out of the ground. Many found out about this cursing and got rid of them, others embraced them and collected them. This particular gem was taken into to Russia at some time in the past. With much of the treasure that was in Russia being sold to the Queen of England.
I do not have any speculation of this event other than the information that I received from my mother that she received from her Grandmother. All the time, this stone was imprinted with evil and misery. As this was all that it passed along to the owners of it, misery. And I would expect that it is still this way today. Do I want to try to find it? Absolutely not! I do not want the misery that comes with it. Even if you were to find it, major expenditure to do this, and sell it, to make some profits on the cost of digging it up, it will still bring misery as the money may also be tainted and may be totally used up just to excavate it, that is if it was still there. So, leave this item be unless you are an STS soul that needs more misery in their life.
A Wikipedia comment on the Queen’s jewels. “The origin of a distinct royal jewel collection is vague, though it is believed the jewels have their origin somewhere in the 16th century. Many of the pieces are from overseas and were brought to the United Kingdom as a result of civil war, coups and revolutions, or acquired as gifts to the monarch. [1] Most of the jewelry dates from the 19th and 20th centuries.”
I believe that this crown was the Vladimir tiara, and this stone was with it when it was brought into England. An art dealer, the man in blue, was the one that recovered the items that were hidden in Russia and sold it to the queen.
The man in blue was the one that followed my great grandmother to America. Only this individual knew exactly what was in the crates that were originally stolen. How this art dealer was able to ‘Recover’ these items, not to mention knowing where they were stored in the castle, is suspicious. But you know, there is great profit to be made when others are in misery. Heck they probably wanted this man in blue to take the stuff just to get themselves out of the misery that accompanies them. This is about the time that Russia came back to life from revolution, in the early 1920’s. Maybe there is a connection here. So, we have an art dealer, that during the 1917 Russia revolution made off with a cache of items that included the tiara, which he sold a portion of to the Queen of England for a fair sum of money. Now that does not sound too fishy, does it?
But the Vladimir Tiara and other crowns of this timeline were made with blood covered gemstones. Emeralds like this one came from South America. The souls of many were taken to acquire these gemstones and may still connect to them. And then there are those that have and those that want, this is how wars are started, and the spoils go to the victor or the advantageous thief in this case. I would guess that is why England got them in the end. Just having them in the beginning was possibly an effect on why they lost them. If you are wanting this kind of an item, watch out. You may be in for more misery than you expect once you have it.
I always wondered why a country has so many jewels and crowns that sit under glass and over a river that rarely get worn at all? Now I wonder if the nearby water helps contain the evil in them. It might allow them to be worn without too much effect on the wearer.
As for the Queen of England, she wore this tiara for an event before her death, so did Diana. I saw Camellia wearing it a little while back. I wouldn’t wear it, would you?
It is five years since my mother died, I mentioned this subject again to her before she died, and the story changed a little. She believes that one of her brothers now has the gemstone and it makes sense. This brother, he has owned a ten-story furniture store in Olean, New York for many years now, since I was a kid. It was a failure operation as the top six floors were rotted, any expensive product that was up there was wrote off because he couldn’t retrieve it to sell it. He has been part of several failed endeavors and lives in the family house in Duke Center, a three-story house in oil country. It has a cellar that is underwater, thick smelly oily water, all year long and some years you have to dig out of the house from the top floor door because of the snow drifts, you had to dig ten to fifteen feet up to get out, I saw pictures. This brother has been in misery all his life that I have known him, he is still alive, and I suspect he is still sitting on the gem as I finish this write-up today. Haiku …