One interesting thing about this park, apart from its being one of
the largest parks of its kind in the world, is that in the early
1600s, tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich decided to build a model economy
in this area. More than 700 peasant families were moved in the
village of Izmailovo in the course of just one summer. Parks and
gardens were laid out, and exotic crops such as melons,
watermelons, cotton and grapes were grown in greenhouses. There was
even a menagerie with rare animals and birds.
Roughly 20 ponds were dug out along the courses of two rivers
which flow through the park. Watermills were built on the dams and
fish were farmed in the ponds. Aleksei's son, Peter the Great,
spent much of his childhood at Izmailovo, and first learned to sail
there. Izmailovo area became part of Moscow in 1935.
Now back to the cache. Its theme was probably inspired by the
time of the year: midsummer is a mystical time when the forces of
magic are increased and both good and evil spirits roam our
world.
In Goethe’s Faust, there is a scene, taking place in Witch's
kitchen, where Faust is magically transformed into a young man. The
Witch is working her magic and chanting:
This you must ken!
From one make ten,
And two let be,
Make even three,
Then rich you'll be.
Skip o'er the four!
From five and six,
The Witch's tricks,
Make seven and eight,
'Tis finished straight;
And nine is one,
And ten is none,
That is the witch's one-times-one!
In fact, this incantation is not a total abracadabra. The code
it contains can be converted into a matrix – a 3 cell by 3 cell
grid, in which each horizontal and vertical, and one diagonal row
of three has the same sum.
This sum is X.
The cache is in the park. It is a small tupperware container
hidden inside an old and rotten stump near a fallen tree. Its
coordinates are: N 55.46.8X/ E 37.46.3(2X+3).
If the witch's one-times-one makes no sense to you, look for a
capsule containing a filled-in “magic table” inside a hole at the
base of a big lime tree at N 55.46.886/ E 37.46.661.
Contents:
1. witch
2. tin soldier
3. coloured piggy
4. 2 TBs, 1 geocoin
Good luck!