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In November 2021, an online advertisement claimed: Boy Finds Tank Buried In Mud, Opens Hatch And This. We clicked the ad. It led to a 35-page slideshow article on the Post Fun website that described a Soviet-built T34/76 being found in Mätasjärv in the Kurtna Lake District in Estonia. A variation of the ad read slightly different: Boy Finds Tank Buried In Mud, Opens Hatch And Realizes What Army Has Done. In our quest to find out if this really happened, we first looked at an article that appeared to have been published around Sept. 14, 2000. The article reported that, in 1944, a boy noticed tank tracks leading into a lake and air bubbles rising to the surface for two months straight. According to the story, decades later he told the tale to others, so they decided to search the lake: We were unable to find anything in newspaper archives or other traditional news sources to help us confirm the story. For example, englishrussia.com credited the same article to the Komatsu Times. We were unable to find a history of this publication ever having existed. Komatsu was also purportedly the brand of equipment that was used to pull the tank out of the mud. We contacted a company spokesperson to ask questions and will update this story should we hear back. Photographs were included with the article as well. The pictures showed a tank being unearthed from mud, just as the story about the boy mentioned: We also found the same photographs on Imgur and rense.com. YouTube also hosts videos of the same tank from the pictures. In 2010, the Missing Military YouTube channel posted the following clip that showed the Sept. 14, 2000, date on top of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNJ-acc9QskA second video showed an alternate angle of the tank being pulled from the mud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWcCEV9d48gIt also captured the moment that the tank was turned back on. The lengthy slideshow article from Post Fun ended with the following line: Now, the T-34 World War II tank is proudly displayed in a war museum in the Gorodenko village. We found multiple articles online that claimed the same thing about the tank and a museum. We then found what might be the original source of the entire story. The website diving.ee is the home of Otsing, the same history club that was previously mentioned in the article that we cited earlier. The website has a page dedicated to the latest news about the tank. However, it appeared that it hadn't been updated since 2007. On the Otsing history club's website, the original account of the story confirmed the story of the boy who noticed the tank tracks in 1944 and, decades later, told others of his memories. This did indeed lead to the recovery efforts of the Soviet tank on Sept. 14, 2000, as shown in the pictures and videos: The page also mentioned that Lennart Meri, the President of Estonia, came to admire the historic vehicle days after it was pulled from the lake. It even included information that might be the most recent details of the tank's whereabouts: In sum, it's true that a boy's memories from 1944 led to a buried tank being found in the mud in Estonia in 2000. However, it's unclear where the vehicle is today. We don't yet know if the museum was ever fully established. The Otsing club's website showed dated pictures of a museum they hoped to one day open. We emailed Mihail Zenov to learn more, including additional details about the man who, as a boy, saw the tank tracks in the mud in 1944. We will update this story should we receive a response.
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