03.07.2025

RSUH Students Discover a 12th-Century Birch Bark Manuscript

On June 27, 2025, students from the Department of History of RSUH, who are currently undertaking a field internship in Veliky Novgorod, discovered the first birch bark manuscript of the season. The valuable document contains references to monetary units.

The manuscript was found at the Troitsky-XVI excavation site in the 12th-century layers and was assigned the serial number 1232. The well-preserved document is currently being studied in the laboratory. The find contains a two-line text mentioning monetary units—grivnas.

Second-year history student Aleksandra Dushuk, who had discovered the document, shared her impressions of the internship. She noted that the main reason she had chosen Veliky Novgorod was the cherished dream of all archaeologists and history students—to find a birch bark manuscript. Aleksandra emphasized that she and her fellow students had encountered many challenges along the way: swampy terrain, heavy rains that had flooded the excavation site, and mostly monotonous finds—fragments of bones and ceramics.

“I had almost come to terms with the fact that my dream would not come true,” the student shared.

But faith in success and team spirit proved stronger than fatigue and bad weather. Aleksandra called the day the coveted manuscript was found the “culmination of the journey,” which she completed alongside fellow students, whose invaluable contributions she also acknowledged. The head of the student archaeological internship is Kirill Khudin.