The existence of birch bark writing in Russia and was known to the detection of letters archaeologists. In the monastery of St.. Sergius Radonezh «the most books are not in charters pisahu, but beresteh» (Joseph Volotsky). By VL Ioannina, in museums and archives survived a lot of recent papers, written on birch (XVII-XIX centuries, even entire books). Ethnographer SV Maksimov seen in the middle of the XIX century birch book from the Old to Mezen. On the bank of the Volga River near Saratov peasants, Roy silo pit, in 1930, the Golden Horde were birch bark letter XIV century.
The place where the first had been found birch bark letters of medieval Rus', became the Great Novgorod. Novgorod archaeological expedition working in the 1930's under the leadership of AV Artsihovskogo repeatedly found cut sheets of birch bark, as well as writing - sharp-tipped metal rods or bone, known as an instrument for writing on Voske (however, prior to the birch bark letters version that it is written, was not dominant, and they are often described as nails, pins or hair «unknown objects»). Even then, there was Artsihovskogo conjecture about the possibility of finding letters, protsarapannyh to bark. However, the Great Patriotic War (during which Novgorod was occupied by the Germans) the work of archaeologists, and they only resumed in the late 1940's.
July 26, 1951 at Nerevskom excavation was found birch bark patent number 1: it contains a list of feudal obligations ( «pozema» and «donation») in favor of one of Thomas. The opening showed that, despite the fear, when you write letters is almost never used fragile ink (found only three such letters from over a thousand, including a large Moscow charter in 2007), the text was simply protsarapan in Korea and perfectly readable. (In Honor of the findings July 26 in Novgorod the annual festival - «Day birch bark letters»). The same archaeological season has brought a further 9 papers on birch, published only in 1953 (first opening of birch bark letters did not receive adequate coverage in the press, perhaps because of the ideological control of the historical sciences).