Salmanov struck oil on March 21, 1961 in the Megion field. He sent all his opponents similar telegrams: "Dear comrade, an oil fountain is gushing from the depth of 2,180 meters in Megion. Is it clear?" His opponents in the Soviet Ministry of Geology said that it was a natural anomaly and that the oil fountain would soon exhaust. When Salmanov struck the second oil reserve in Ust-Balyk, he sent a telegram to the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev: "I found oil. That's it." The Soviet leaders realized the importance of Salmanov's discoveries, and Siberian oil soon became the main driving force of Soviet economy and a primary source of hard currency for the Soviet budget.