The find was discovered by a local teacher, who took her class to help in restoring an abandoned church near Lipetsk, used as a grain warehouse in Soviet times. The coins were discovered in a metal chest, which the teacher accidently found when her foot went through a floor board.
"The metal chest with coins was hidden under the church floor, near the altar. Many coins were wrapped in oiled paper," Alexander Bessudnov said.
He said that of almost 8,000 coins, 700 were silver. The treasure was taken to a nearby police station in buckets.
"The oldest coins dated back to 1737, while the newest one was minted in 1914, three medals were also found," the archaeologist said. "All [the coins] are well-preserved and are virtually uncorroded, probably, because the church stands on a hill."
Although the teacher will receive 25% of the treasure's value, it is still unclear what will happen to the rest of the coins.
"Russian law does not specifically cover procedures for handling treasure," the head of the local cultural heritage department, Andrei Naidenov, said. "That's why everything is up to the local authorities."
According to a member of the local Christian community, villagers expect the money will be used to restore the church.
It is still not known who the owner of the coins is and why they were buried in the church. One version said the chest may have been buried by a former church leader, who died in 1914, while other people say that a priest named Pyotr Nadezhdin buried the coins to save them from the Bolsheviks.
"Similar cases have occurred in other regions," Naidenov said.
This is the second archaeological find in Lipetsk in just over a year. In March 2007 archaeologists found a chest containing two silver goblets, a cigarette case and 1,050 coins in the foundations of an old house in downtown Lipetsk.
