A Soviet cologne was found under the floor of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair.

      15 August 2025 18:12

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      Society — On 15 August, in one of the premises of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, employees discovered bottles of citrus cologne produced in 1988. The items had lain under the floor for more than three decades. The unusual discovery was made by staff on Archaeologist’s Day.

      According to the surviving labels, the cologne was produced by the Kazan factory "Aromat." Each bottle was marked with a price — 1 ruble 80 kopecks. By late-1980s standards this was a fairly affordable price, since the average salary in the country at the time was about 150–200 rubles.

      Who and why the bottles were left under the floor remains a mystery. Perhaps they were accidentally forgotten by workers carrying out repairs. Or maybe someone deliberately hid them — as a joke or as a sort of message to future generations.

      Deputy Director of the Interregional Center for Archaeological Research Alexey Sviridov noted that the items themselves do not have archaeological value. But the story connected with them is another matter entirely. In his words, the value here is not in the cologne itself, but in how and where it was found: a stash under the floor, a Soviet bottle, a bunch of possible versions of how they got there.

      Earlier it was reported that archaeologists found four ancient Mari burials in the Krasnobakovsky forests.

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