The fall of tektite rain in the Nizhny Novgorod region in the winter of 1996/1997

In early spring, in April 1997, military pensioner Alexei Yakovlevich Levin from Nizhny Novgorod discovered a scattering of black fragments on a small area of a previously cultivated field. In the late autumn of 1996, he repeatedly passed through this area and did not notice anything like that. The field is located next to the Nizhny Novgorod - Arzamas highway at 68 km, not far from d. Bersenikha. The samples were collected from a 10x60 m field area stretched along the meridian. There are no businesses or landfills in the vicinity.

The pieces have a deep black color, sometimes golden-gray, bluish surface color, some of them had chips that strongly reflected the rays of the sun, which actually attracted the attention of the author of the find. In total, they collected about 200 pieces, and most of them were on the surface, and the rest was extracted from the ground from a depth of 10-20 cm. The weight of the pieces is from 2 kg or less.

The fragments found are uneven, various in shape pieces, many have a wedge-shaped shape, there are tubes, twisted figures. In thin chips, the pure color ranges from pink to thick red. The finds are an amorphous vitreous mass with a specific gravity of 2.7 g/cm3. There are no traces of melting or gorenje on the fragments. Many samples have a perfectly smooth surface. A number of pieces have smooth holes: through and dead-end. On other samples there are flat areas of the surface, sometimes with radial rays diverging along the sample. There are also fragments with very specific shapes and details on their surfaces. The origin of such samples will be discussed further.

Thus, it can be stated that in the winter of 1996/1997, glass meteorites fell from space on the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region, resulting in a small scattering area.