“Troitsk excavation under threat”, “The last chance to know our history”, “Archaeologists ask for help”, “How to save birch-bark letters?” – are only a small part of the publications that appeared this autumn. Fears of losing such rare and valuable Novgorod literatures are connected, oddly enough, with the construction of the National Historical and Archaeological Centre named after Academician V.L. Yanin, which should begin this year. But a month and a half is left till the end of the year, and excavations at the site of the future centre are still going on. Do archaeologists manage to finish and builders to start their work? Has the hype around the excavation gone in favour of the cause? About it – in the material T-invariant.
Excavate and preserve
Four years ago money was allocated from the federal budget for the construction of a new archive of the Novgorod Museum-Reserve. The financing of the project for the construction of a multifunctional museum centre for the storage, study, restoration and display of antiquities is, as archaeologists assure us, an amazing case. Our interlocutors-scientists could not even remember when in the history of modern Russia money was allocated for a new storage centre.
Scheme of the Troitsky excavation. Website of the Novgorod Museum-Reserve
– Archaeological excavations are at best half of the job,” explains an employee of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow), who asked that her name not be mentioned in the article. – It is equally important to restore and preserve them. Without a good storage facility, without climate control, without special chambers and everything else, collections in a museum are exposed to various risks. Competent and successful storage requires special conditions and good specialists. In Veliky Novgorod, for example, there is a unique workshop for restoration of wet archaeological wood (currently working directly in the Novgorod Kremlin. – T-invariant). And if usually it takes about twice as long to process the material as it takes to excavate it, in Novgorod it takes even longer! The laws are quite different here: restoration of wood takes several years. The technology specially developed for wet archaeological wood is such that the finds are soaked in special solutions for a long time. So I can’t even predict how long the finds found this year will stay with the restorers before we, archaeologists, study them.
The preservation of ancient wooden finds in Novgorod is exceptional and is explained by several factors. Novgorod stands on dense clay soil, which excludes natural drainage of precipitation. As a result, rain and melt water flows through the cultural layers, saturating them with water to the limit. The increased moisture prevents aeration, and thus the life of bacteria that cause rotting.
Interestingly, if soil from archaeological dumps is used for gardening, it has to be specially “contaminated” with an admixture of surface soil with living soil bacteria and other microorganisms.
In the XVIII century the first branched drainage network was built in Novgorod. This drainage system dried up the layers of the XVI-XVII centuries and partially the strata of the second half of the XV century. Therefore, in those parts of the city where the drainage system was running, all organic remains had rotted away until the middle of the 15th century. However, the underlying layers are still saturated with moisture and perfectly preserve the antiquities.
Of course, such a high humidity of the ground gave the townspeople a lot of trouble and made them avoid digging cellars and deeply buried foundations. But this is what preserved the cultural layers and their stratigraphic purity. In addition, because of this soil, the citizens tried to preserve the layout of the city. Once arisen highways almost did not change their configuration: as the cultural layer grew, new pavement was laid on the old pavement. However, under Catherine II, the layout of the city was changed and the streets were laid anew, according to the general plan. It was a happy coincidence that the ancient streets were not affected by the transformations and have survived to this day.
But the find pulled out of this unique environment begins to be actively affected by environmental factors again, including putrefactive bacteria. In addition, as objects begin to dry, they become deformed, broken and lose their original appearance. All this requires a special approach and unique preservation techniques. As a result, 11 restoration workshops work on the preservation of the material extracted from the ground in the Novgorod Museum, and the laboratory of dendrochronological analysis of wood helps to determine the exact age of the finds. In addition, laboratories of the Novgorod Museum, the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and Novgorod State University are working on unique Novgorod finds.
Along with unique ideas and achievements in working with organic finds from the “wet cultural layer”, the scientific article 2023 states that the workshop of conservation and restoration of wet archaeological wood of the Department of Restoration of Museum Objects of the Novgorod Museum-Reserve still uses artisanal equipment that was converted from non-core apparatuses at the end of the last century: for vacuum drying – a unit from the factory and a medical autoclave, for freezing – household and commercial-industrial freezers.
Naturally, absolutely all specialists agree that the Novgorod Museum-Reserve needs a new storage facility with modern equipment and storage chambers.
Today we know Veliky Novgorod as a unique place that has preserved for us the history of the wooden medieval city. But this was not always the case. “Although Novgorod is an ancient city, but only the Kremlin, of a rather unsightly appearance, with the St Sophia Cathedral, remarkable for its antiquity, but neither enormity nor elegance,” wrote the literary critic Belinsky in 1845.
The main news about the life of scientists during the war, videos and infographics – in the T-invariant Telegram channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss out.
And he is not alone in his attitude. In 1911, the XV All-Russian Archaeological Congress was held in Novgorod. Traditionally, archaeological excavations were carried out in the province or in the city where it was held. In Novgorod they were not conducted. Then some excavations were initiated by Nicholas II. Neither reports nor drawings from those excavations have survived, only Nikolai Roerich’s essay “Underground Russia”.
Archaeological study of Novgorod began only in the 1920s-1930s. Active discussions of the problems of preservation of Novgorod antiquities began in connection with the construction of a section of the Petrograd-Orlyol railway during the First World War. Scheduled excavations began only from 1931. “The urgent nature was dictated by the concern of expanding without any archaeological survey the territory of the city’s water and electric stations,” says another scientific article. So the mutual existence of construction and archaeological excavations is quite usual for Novgorod.
Archaeologists hoped to find only birch bark writing – they thought that birch bark was written with ink and therefore the inscriptions had disappeared. But on 26 July 1951, during the grandiose Nerevsky excavation led by Professor Artsikhovsky, they found the first birch bark writing and then some more – and this fundamentally changed the scientists’ view of the life of the city in the Middle Ages. Hundreds and now thousands of found letters became “a source that united archaeology and history” – says the inscription on the stone at the site of the first letter on Velikaya Street.
The first Troitsky excavation was laid in 1973 by the Novgorod Archaeological Expedition under the guidance of Valentin Yanin, an academician and honorary resident of Novgorod (the future centre will be named after him). The excavation was named after the Church of the Holy Trinity, located nearby. Since then, excavations in the neighbourhood between Meretskova-Volosova and Telegin-Redyatin streets have continued annually, and archaeologists will have enough work there for many years to come. Today the total area of the Trinity excavations has reached 8200 square metres. On a large part of this area (7600 square metres) excavations have already been completed and cafes and mansions have already been built there.
The total number of individual finds at the Troitskiy excavation site exceeds 70,000 items. Among them are two coin hoards (Western European silver coins from the first third of the 11th century and Arab coins from the first half of the 10th century), wooden cylinders – seals for tribute sacks, the first known seal of Yaroslav the Wise, the oldest psaltery with the inscription “Slovisha”, numerous birch bark letters and many others. During almost half a century of the Troitskiy excavation four medieval streets of Lyudin’s end: Yarysheva, Chernitsyna, Proboynaya and a lane in the southern part of the investigated area have fallen into the research area. In addition to street pavements, 19 mansions were uncovered and studied at the Troitsky excavation. But it is too early to summarise the results: excavations are still in progress.
Each new excavation site is given a new serial number. The XVI excavation site is now mothballed, the work there will continue next summer. And the most famous, perhaps, can be considered XVII Trinity excavation, laid in 2022. It was the centre of the media and social media hype.
Resonance to help
While preparing the material, we have never heard that the Novgorod Museum Reserve does not need a new modern archive. The construction of this centre could be carried out on the site of old excavations – but, unfortunately, these territories have already been developed.
In 2022, unexpectedly for archaeologists, the idea of the project changed. The project of the new building was approved, which is ready to accommodate all 11 restoration workshops and the laboratory of dendrochronological analysis of wood, about 30% of the funds, a photo archive, a multifunctional museum centre, a café and even an atrium. Our interlocutors emphasised that this complex will be very well located.
From the construction project of the National Historical and Archaeological Centre named after Academician V.L. Yanin. Veliky Novgorod masterplan website
– By the time we started working on the project, we had a good, large site that had been excavated and was ready for construction work,” says Pavel Kolosnitsyn, an archaeologist with experience working on the Troitsky excavation. – The vault, in fact, will be close to the museum in the city centre. This opens up a bunch of possibilities, up to the use of open storage and other modern things. Basically, the location is very good. Especially if construction was planned where the excavation has already been completed.
But according to the approved project the storage is located on the XVII Trinity excavation site, where the works started only in 2022. The neighbouring XIV excavation was dug for 10 years (from 2001 to 2011). XII excavation – eight years (2001-2009), and XII excavation – five years (1995-2000). The work on the XVII excavation should be completed in an unprecedentedly short period of two years.
The Troitskiy excavation got its fame not due to unique and interesting excavations (although there were some). The attention of mass media was attracted to the excavation by the fear that construction works on it may begin before the completion of archaeological works. Marcis Gasuns, candidate of philological sciences, linguist, Sanskrit specialist, got journalists involved in this problem.
– My scientific supervisor Andrey Anatolievich Zaliznyak gave a significant part of his life to the Troitsk excavation, – says Gasuns. – And I went there to collect materials – I am preparing two books of Andrei’s unpublished lectures and I wanted to see the excavation with my own eyes.
on 1 August Gasuns arrived at the excavation, stayed two weeks in Veliky Novgorod, and worked as a volunteer. What he saw alarmed him.
– I have twenty, even thirty years of experience as a gardener, and I understand what the earth and the weather are like,” he explains. – I compare calendar dates, seasons, weather conditions and the amount of work. In August, they said that everything would be clear by 1 September. When I arrived on 2 September, they said it would be clearer in mid-September. on the 13th of October, they said: “Well, of course, we will move it to February and we will continue”.
After returning to St Petersburg from the dig in August, Marcis decided to write an advert calling for volunteers to come to the Troitsky dig. It is noteworthy that he coordinated his ad with the general director of the Novgorod Museum-Reserve, Sergei Brun. According to Marcis, the directorate made only one edit, asking to remove the word “destruction” in the phrase “The birch-bark charters are under threat of destruction”.
Gasuns admits that he doesn’t understand anything about archaeology. But he is sure that his extensive experience in optimising work processes is more important here:
– I have led large volunteer teams on many occasions and for a long time, and I know what I’m talking about. Of course, this announcement should have been written in the spring. If we had raised this wave of interest in the Troitsk excavation then, it would have been possible to finish the excavations this year.
At the end of August at the traditional Archaeological Friday (a meeting where preliminary archaeological results are summed up), Sergei Brun assured journalists that everything is going according to plan and the Centre will start construction “only when everything will be carefully dismantled under the supervision of our best archaeologists, four authoritative organisations (excavations at the Troitsk excavation site are conducted by archaeologists from the Novgorod Museum-Reserve, Novgorod State University, Moscow State University and the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. – T-invariant). At about the same time an announcement “Only you can save the history of ancient Novgorod!” appeared on the Novgorod State University website.
In September, new appeals for volunteers to help with excavations appeared on behalf of Novgorod archaeologists. on September 11, Vladimir Korshakov, a historian and author of the Russian Chronicles telegram channel, published a petition to the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation demanding to postpone the start of construction of the centre and allow archaeologists to finish excavations at the XVII site of the Troitsky excavation in 2025. At the time of publication, just under 8,500 people have signed the petition.
In response, a message appeared in the telegram channel of the Novgorod Museum-Reserve, in which it was noted that both archaeologists and museum staff were surprised by both requests for help and reports about the risk of destruction of archaeological layers of the X-XI centuries.
At the end of September archaeologists were promised that excavations could be continued in winter – for winter works a special tent-warming tent will be installed and heat guns will be purchased.
– Now all over the world, including us, teplakas are built for excavations in winter, – explains an employee of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who has experience of working in such pavilions. – When we were digging in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, they built us a wonderful teplak: we had grass there all winter. We went in, undressed and dug in our T-shirts. There are such opportunities, especially if excavations are carried out in the city. Sometimes it is even more comfortable to work in such greenhouses than in the summer – it is not wet, there is no wind, the excavation is not flooded, and there is always excellent lighting.
Our interlocutor from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences admits that the money for heat guns and for a special pavilion may have been allocated thanks, among other things, to the fuss raised by Marcis Gasuns:
– As far as I know, they have allocated almost 12 million roubles extra just for this heat hut! This shows the attention and interest in quality work. I would like the museum to receive additional funding for restoration and processing of finds. This is no less important part of the work.
Up-to-date videos about science during the war, interviews, podcasts and streamings with famous scientists – on the YouTube channel T-invariant. Become a subscriber!
One of the volunteers, who agreed to speak to us anonymously, believes that the outcry may have been overblown, but that it “allowed the archaeologists to take control of the situation”.
– Now archaeologists really have the last word on when it is possible to carry out full-fledged construction work. archaeologists decide when construction begins,” he says. – Right now, construction is going on in areas where the research has already been completed. So the only thing you can do to help them is to come and talk about the excavation and attract other volunteers, but you have to realise that working on the excavation now means working in the mud and cold.
All this time Marcis Gasuns and his like-minded friends continue to run a Telegram channel for volunteers who want to work on the Troitsk excavation. At the time of publication of this material, 415 participants were subscribed to it.
Helpers and “saviours”
Anyone who has ever worked with volunteers knows that it is not only the help, but also the time and effort they give. Volunteers themselves admit that understanding what and how to dig comes with experience. In their Telegram channel they often admit that the initial briefing was minimal and focused more on safety. The participants share in the channel how to dig properly and how to recognise a find in a dirt coma.
A representative of the developer, TSP LLC, who asked not to be named, says that there were not many volunteers: just over 60 people per season. He himself is wary of volunteers:
– We try not to touch them, so as not to cause unnecessary noise. In fact, most of them are nothing as workers. There are some normal ones, of course. But there are quite a few who work for an hour and a half or two hours, and the rest of the time they walk around, take pictures, distract the archaeologists. That is, and do not work, and do not give others. And these are the ones who most often call themselves “saviours”.
Archaeologist Ilya Voronkov (Moscow State University) also gives a low opinion of the effectiveness of volunteers:
– Resonance attracted a lot of people who really distracted and interfered. There are also those who came for a long time and got involved in the work process, but this is a drop in the ocean.
Marcis Gasuns believes that the wary attitude towards volunteers is gradually changing.
– At first we were dismissed as pesky flies. Now I see scientists coming to our Telegram channel one after another,” he says. – They have begun to realise that volunteers are a force to be reckoned with.
Troitsky excavation XVII, anthropologist Alexander, without distracting from the process, gives a lecture. Photo by Alina Volodkina (published in the Troitskiy Raskop Volunteers telegram channel)
The helpers who came to Novgorod from different parts of Russia are extraordinary people. Moscow journalist Natalia Demina initiated lectures on birch bark letters, medieval musical instruments, archaeology, and organised excursions from leading experts for the volunteers working at the Troitsky excavation site. For several weeks in Veliky Novgorod there was a kind of archaeological festival of science, where practical “seminars” (work on the excavation from 9 to 18) were combined with theoretical immersion in history. Besides, thanks to volunteers it was possible to buy a lot of necessary things for men’s and women’s huts: kettles, extension cords, microwaves and other equipment.
And one more curious moment. Until recently, insects found at the excavation were sent to the dump: archaeologists did not have a specialist interested in them. Volunteers managed to contact the deputy director for science of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergey Sinyov and took him beetles X-XII centuries. for further research.
But, of course, volunteers are not the largest group among the diggers. Under the direction of archaeologists also hired by the developer workers, and in summer the main labour force were students of Moscow State University and Novgorod State University, who had an internship. And also schoolchildren, for whom the excavations became a good opportunity to work.
– We hired only teenagers from 14 years old and older. They worked for us four hours a day, as they should under Russian law. And I have to say, it is thanks to them that our work has progressed considerably,” says a representative of the developer.
Many volunteers shared with us their fear that important finds could have been lost in the rush.
– It may seem that everything is simple: there are no letters on the blank birch bark, but there are letters on the literacy. But there are cases when seemingly empty birch bark is put into a box with finds of no scientific value, from which volunteers and workers can take souvenirs. And then it turns out to be a certificate! – explains Gasuns – The rush here is not good, because something is regularly found at the dump. Metal, of course, will be found with a metal detector. There could be dozens, even hundreds of beads. The fact that bead No. 8041 was left on the dumpsite does not make me hot or cold. The number of beads is much more modest, the loss of one bead is a tragedy. In autumn and winter the earth sticks together, turns into a slurry. You can’t crush it properly if you want to. You take a lump and throw it into a bucket. That’s why it’s easy to overlook a small find.
Ilya Voronkov sees no hurry in his work at the Troitsk excavation:
– We work at a normal pace, sometimes we would even like to be faster. The peculiarity of working with anaerobic “wet” cultural layer is that it must be examined quickly. Because the layer oxidises and dries instantly. As for finds, archaeological research is not limited to finding them. We study cultural layers as a whole, examine the remains of buildings, their mutual location. That is why it is wrong to emphasise on findings alone. The layer is hand-picked on site – this is the optimal methodology, which has been used in Novgorod for decades. Then it is additionally checked with a metal detector.
Today construction work is in full swing: a heating main is being laid in the areas where excavations have already been completed. According to the builder who spoke to us, whether this year construction will be able to start on the entire area planned for the centre depends not so much on weather conditions as on whether it will be possible to hire a sufficient number of workers. But it is already November, the excavations in the northern part are not yet complete, and a marquee is planned to be built over the southern part – which will stop the excavations, according to our interlocutors, for two months.
National Historical and Archaeological Centre named after Academician V.L. Yanin. Visualisation: Arena Design Institute. Veliky Novgorod masterplan website
Archaeologists undoubtedly need a new building for archives and laboratories. At the same time it is not easy to postpone the allocated federal funding to the next year (and there are no guarantees that there will be money for such a construction next year). So far it looks like that despite the vigorous efforts of four authoritative and experienced archaeological organisations involved in the excavations (the Novgorod Museum-Reserve, the Novgorod State University, the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Department of Archaeology of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University), the work on the northern part of the Troitsk excavation site will not be completed this year.
Now it was possible to reach only to a layer of X century. Perhaps, thanks to the greenhouse that will be installed, it will be possible to complete excavations in the southern part this year (now it was possible to reach the layer of the XI century). More precisely about the plans of builders and scientists we will be able to learn only closer to the end of this year. Now the official management adheres to the promises given a few months ago that everything will be completed on time, and if not, no finds will be lost. The role of the media in this story must also be recognised: the attention to the Trinity dig may not have helped directly, but it has no doubt forced the developer to treat the site with more care and attention. A lot of people, thanks to the raised problem, began to be interested in the history of Novgorod and to follow the excavations, and thus new finds. And in the Telegram channel created by Marcis, the volunteers discuss their plans for the next year.
You can support the work of T-invariant by subscribing to our Patreon and choosing a convenient donation amount.
Text: Yulia Chyornaya
Yulia Chernaya 13.11.2024