Archaeological finds in Zaryadye: what a letter, seals and a hoard reveal about life in Moscow

Archaeological finds from Zaryadye offer a glimpse of life in medieval Moscow’s trading and artisan quarter through a letter about an unsuccessful journey to Kostroma, lead seals, wooden drains and a hoard of silver coins. These pieces of evidence come from different centuries and different parts of the district. Together, they reveal the variety of activities along the Moskva River, but they do not form the history of a single house or prove that a market operated continuously in one place.

The main challenge in interpreting these finds is to separate an object from the story we might wish to attach to it. The birch-bark letter describes a conflict during a journey, but does not identify its author’s occupation. A trade seal indicates a practice of recording or inspecting goods, but cannot in itself measure turnover. A hoard reveals which coins were together when they were hidden, but does not explain who hid them or why. These limits are particularly important in Zaryadye: the city was rebuilt many times, and its archaeological layers survived unevenly.

Why has evidence of early Moscow survived in Zaryadye?

Zaryadye lies between Red Square and the Moskva River, within the old trading and artisan quarter. Dense development did not erase all its traces: sections of archaeological deposits remained beneath later buildings and infrastructure. A study by the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage describes the excavations of 2006–2007 and 2015, comparing their findings with historical plans and ground conditions. The authors of the study estimated that at least 20 per cent of the area had yet to be destroyed or investigated. This estimate relates to the time when the study was prepared, rather than the proportion of the area available to archaeologists in 2026.

For a historian, more matters than the state of preservation of an individual object. A find’s position in the ground, nearby structural remains and the sequence of deposits help establish what came first. Around Mokrinsky Lane, approximately 100 m from the Church of St Nicholas the Wet, archaeologists recorded traces of occupation dating to no later than the 13th century. The main body of deposits from the 14th–15th centuries there reached a depth of about two and a half metres. Such a thickness cannot be treated as the trace of a single period or event: it accumulated through different episodes of life and alterations to the site.

The damp riverside environment could preserve materials that quickly disappear in other conditions. The report by those involved in the Zaryadye excavations lists timber street surfaces, log structures, wells and water conduits. Timber provides an understanding of the layout of roads and courtyards that stone foundations alone cannot offer. However, finding a timber surface in a particular excavation does not automatically allow the entire course of a medieval street to be traced on a modern map: neighbouring excavations and plans are needed for that.

The history of research helps distinguish the age of the district from the age of each individual site within it. The Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences dates the early Veliky Posad to the first half of the 12th century and notes the settlement’s focus on trade and crafts in the 12th–13th centuries. Rescue excavations from the 1940s to the 1960s investigated more than 2,000 square metres. It was then that researchers established that archaeological deposits reached eight metres in places, and that the bases of small log structures survived beneath later buildings.

The lowest level of those earlier excavations contained single-room log buildings without undercrofts, measuring approximately 4–5 m on each side, with plank floors and rammed-clay stoves. Some buildings served as workshops. These are tangible traces of habitation and work, but they cannot be taken as representative of the whole district: settlement began at different times in different parts of Zaryadye. Excavations in 2015–2017 showed that the north and west, closer to the Kremlin, were settled earlier, the southern riverside strip later, and the eastern part only towards the end of the 15th century. The archaeologists’ field report explicitly distinguishes between these zones. By the riverbank, archaeologists recorded buildings constructed at ground level from the 15th–16th centuries and 17th-century houses with sunken undercrofts; the authors associate this change with denser development of the plots.

Early pottery found beside the river offers a particularly clear example. Individual 12th-century sherds occur in the riverside deposits, but researchers explain their presence as the result of sand being washed down from the higher northern part of the district. The age of such a fragment does not always match that of the building beside which it was found. This case cautions against a simple assumption: that finding a 12th-century object in the ground necessarily means a 12th-century household occupied that same spot.

The field seasons also differed in scale and purpose. In 2006–2007, specialists investigated around 450 square metres; in 2015–2017, systematic excavations covered around 1,800 square metres, while more than 20,000 square metres were monitored during construction work. These are different methods of investigation: an excavation allows the sequence of layers to be traced, whereas in a monitored area the archaeologist’s primary task is to record what construction work exposes. The large figures for the areas investigated therefore cannot simply be added together and treated as an area documented in equal detail throughout.

How does the birch-bark letter change our understanding of everyday life?

The birch-bark letter from Zaryadye preserves a practical message about a journey that did not unfold as its participant had expected. The author set off for Kostroma with other people on the instructions of his ‘master’, but Yuri and his mother turned the travellers back and demanded payments. The full scholarly publication of the letter reads the text as specifying 15, then 3 and a further 20 bely, as well as a poltina. This makes 38 bely in total; researchers interpret ‘bely’ as squirrel pelts used as a means of payment. Possible reasons for the demand—a toll or a debt—remain hypotheses. Scholars are refining the letter’s dating within the second half of the 14th century.

The account is valuable precisely because it is so ordinary. This is neither a chronicle’s account of political power nor a description of a ceremonial occasion, but an attempt to report an obstacle, payments and the fulfilment of an assignment. It shows that a written message could help resolve a practical matter involving a journey beyond Moscow. Yet the text does not say whether the sender was a merchant, an estate manager or a servant, and it provides no basis for assessing literacy among all the inhabitants of Zaryadye.

Researchers call it Moscow’s fourth birch-bark letter. Its number reflects the history of archaeological discoveries, rather than the number of letters ever written in the city. The birch bark survived because of particular burial conditions and was subsequently discovered: the absence of such evidence in a neighbouring household does not prove that its inhabitants did not write.

Researchers established the circumstances of the discovery with a precision rare in urban archaeology: expedition member Anton Kosintsev found the scroll on 20 October 2015 in excavation No. 7. The prepared strip of birch bark measured approximately 42 by 5 centimetres; its edges had been trimmed, its surface smoothed, and the letters scratched along the grain. The scroll contains just three lines, with the third extending for roughly half its length. This format resembles that of the Novgorod letters, but the publication’s authors found no characteristic features of the Old Novgorod dialect in the language of the letter.

The dating is not based on a single word in the text. In the same excavation, coins of Vasily I Dmitriyevich lay considerably above the letter, while seals, keys, rings and fragments of earlier objects were found beside and below it. The authors compared this sequence with the letter forms and language. The preliminary field report dated the letter to the turn of the 15th century. A later study of its palaeography and language allows a range from the 1340s to the 1390s. The archaeological context enables the authors to place the letter in the second half of the 14th century, while the publication’s abstract narrows the date to the final quarter of that century. The letter therefore cannot be dated to a single year.

In the Institute of Archaeology’s first news report in 2015, the first amount was read as 13 bely, giving a total of 36 bely and a poltina; the comprehensive study published in 2019 reads the first amount as 15, and the total as 38 bely and a poltina. The discrepancy arose from interpreting a short historical text, rather than from two different finds. This article follows the later analysis, with its tracing of the inscription and linguistic commentary; the earlier figure should not be repeated as definitively established.

The suggestion that the Yuri mentioned in the letter was Prince Yuri Dmitriyevich, and his mother Princess Evdokia, is appealing because the names and period match. However, researchers examined possible namesakes and showed that many people bore this name. The letter gives no patronymic, princely title or description of an official position. Neither the small sums nor the businesslike tone allows those involved to be identified with confidence. The document reliably records an obstacle during a journey and a payment; identifying the individuals remains a hypothesis rather than an established historical account.

Even the assumption that the author was a permanent resident of Zaryadye should not be made automatically. The letter was found here, but it could have been written elsewhere, passed to its recipient or lost after delivery. Scholars studying the source consider several possible locations for the author and his ‘master’; none is confirmed by an address in the text. The find proves that the letter was present in this layer, rather than that everyone involved in the episode lived near the site of the future Kitay-Gorod wall.

The combination of two forms of payment reveals more about payment practices than an attempt to convert them into modern money would. The authors of the 2019 study associate ‘bely’ with squirrel pelts that had value as a means of payment, and the poltina with silver. Their relative values varied in documents from different places and centuries, so the cost of the unsuccessful journey cannot simply be expressed in roubles. One conclusion from the letter is firm: a person explains to his master why he failed to carry out an assignment and what payment was demanded of him.

What do weights and seals tell us about trade?

Lead seals provide evidence that items were marked in Zaryadye; some objects described by archaeologists as ‘small weights’ may have been used for weighing. They were found in layers from different centuries, so all these finds cannot be combined into a single trading scene. The comprehensive study of excavation No. 7 shows the difference between the small early marks and later Western European goods marks.

A seal may have reached the city attached to goods, but the route of a particular consignment from its place of manufacture to the findspot requires separate evidence. Its presence does not mean that the owner of the household personally travelled abroad. The purpose of each object provisionally described as a ‘small weight’ needs to be checked; without comparable weights, goods and documents, neither the scale of a transaction nor the organisation of trade across the entire trading and artisan quarter can be assessed. Setting precise limits on the conclusions preserves the value of the finds: they record an activity rather than provide ready-made economic statistics.

Objects of Eastern origin or bearing Eastern motifs were also recorded in 14th-century layers: a bronze bracelet with a dragon-head terminal, a mirror with an Arabic inscription, decorative plates and pottery. They broaden the geographical picture of the objects reaching this Moscow district. But a find’s origin, the place where it was sold and the identity of its final owner are separate questions. Even if an object was made far from Moscow, it may have changed hands several times and passed through intermediaries before reaching the banks of the Moskva River.

Small icons of St Nicholas the Wonderworker, crosses, a fragment of an encolpion, bookbinding fittings and a bone stylus remind us that evidence of trade is only part of the picture. These objects relate to religious practices, writing and the use of books; sources date them across the broad span of the 13th–16th centuries. They cannot be assembled into an inventory of a single workshop or family. A more cautious conclusion is that, alongside economic activities, other everyday pursuits formed part of life in the district across successive generations.

Excavation No. 7 helps explain why archaeologists speak of successive layers of trading activity. The 2015 report records small goods seals from the 14th–early 15th centuries and large European examples from the 15th–16th centuries, separated by approximately one and a half metres of deposits. Among the upper finds is a well-preserved seal bearing the coat of arms of Poperinge in Flanders. It points to a Western European system of marking goods; a single lead seal cannot establish a direct route for consignments from that town to the Moscow riverbank.

The lower part of the same excavation yielded not only seals but also objects that researchers provisionally call ‘small weights’. Their purpose is not beyond dispute in every case: some have a socket and decoration, while others are simpler in form. In the field report, the upper and lower levels containing these finds are separated by a metre of deposits. Simply calling them ‘weighing weights’ could quietly replace a question about an object’s function with a ready-made answer. Their use for weighing should remain a working hypothesis until a closer parallel has been found for each type.

The excavation’s proximity to the Mytny Dvor makes a customs-related interpretation of the seals plausible, but does not prove that the institution known to us was already operating in the 14th century. The Institute of Archaeology notes that written records of this institution begin later, in the 16th century. The seals may have been associated with recording goods along an emerging road and at the landing stage; this is a persuasive scholarly hypothesis, rather than documentary confirmation of a customs office at that location when the letter was written.

Why does the hoard not reveal who owned it?

The coin hoard in Zaryadye is evidence of substantial accumulated wealth in the riverside part of the neighbourhood, but its owner's name and the reason for its concealment remain unknown. It was discovered in 2015. The silver was held in three black-burnished vessels: a jug, a flask and a small storage pot. A 2015 publication by the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage reported approximately 43,000 coins; a 2017 article by members of the excavation team gave the final count as 34,994 silver dengi and kopecks, weighing more than 20 kilograms in total. The early estimate should not be presented as the final count.

The hoard's chronology was also refined. The Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage's 2015 publication attributed the earliest coins to the reign of Ivan IV and dated the latest kopecks of Mikhail Fyodorovich to 1614–1615; the excavation team's 2017 article identified issues dating back to Vasily Dmitrievich and dated the latest coins to 1615–1616. The revision changed both ends of the date range; the researchers did not establish when the hoard was concealed. The coin with the latest date shows only that the vessels could not have been hidden before it was issued.

It is particularly tempting to turn this find into an illustration of the Time of Troubles. The historical background helps frame the question, but without a document identifying the owner and explaining the circumstances surrounding the cellar, the connection remains hypothetical. Nor does the number of coins justify describing the find as the ‘city treasury’ or the income of the entire neighbourhood. This is a single archaeological assemblage, exceptionally large for its location, rather than a sample of household budgets in 17th-century Moscow.

Writing in 2017, the archaeologists suggested that the money might have belonged to a merchant trading near the landing stage. This interpretation rests on the size of the assemblage and the character of the area in the 17th century; nothing in the vessels explicitly names the owner. The hypothesis makes the hoard relevant to the study of trade, but does not justify calling it a ‘merchant's hoard’ without qualification. Moreover, the same report shows that the damp southern strip of Zaryadye generally yielded fewer finds indicative of high status than the eastern excavation areas. One rich hoard does not erase the differences between parts of the neighbourhood.

What changed when the Kitay-gorod wall was built?

The Kitay-gorod wall in Zaryadye established a new boundary for the district, but its construction also disrupted the old infrastructure of the low-lying trading settlement. According to the park's official webpage, the fortification was completed in 1538. The historical and cultural assessment documents for the area near Kitaygorodsky Proyezd describe drainage ditches from the 14th–15th centuries and wooden pipes from the second half of the 15th century to the first third of the 16th century. The builders cut through these conduits, disrupting drainage in the low-lying area.

This is a rare case in which archaeology reveals how a major construction decision affected everyday comfort. The wall served a defensive purpose, but its foundations cut across channels that were already in use. This detail connects the fortification's political and architectural history with life in the houses by the river. An important qualification is needed: the assessment report covers the area near Kitaygorodsky Proyezd and the adjoining archaeological sites; without a separate plan, each pipe fragment described cannot be assigned to a location beneath a particular present-day park path.

The Underground Museum is associated with an excavated section of the 16th-century wall's white-stone foundations. The fragment visible in the museum dates from a much later phase than the late-14th-century letter. It is therefore misleading to view the wall as the backdrop to ‘that very day’ when the letter was written. It is more accurate to envisage a sequence: first came the courtyards, streets and drainage of the trading settlement; then builders erected the fortification, altering part of the earlier environment.

The details of the wall's construction explain why its remains could survive in such ground. In 1949–1951, archaeologists first traced its base: an array of piles, white-stone rubble fill and a framework of spruce logs beneath the foundations. In 2016, during the construction of a passage near Moskvoretskaya Embankment, a section of masonry was uncovered measuring 26 metres long, 6.5–6.7 metres wide and up to 2.4 metres in surviving height. These dimensions refer to the foundations investigated, rather than the section of wall visible today.

The structure of the base varied between excavation areas. Beneath one section of the defensive arch were piles; beneath another were reinforced transverse logs without a comparable array of piles. The report's authors suggest that different teams of craftsmen may have built the sections. This explanation rests on actual structural differences, but the number of teams and their composition are unknown. The detail matters to our understanding of the wall itself: the builders selected solutions suited to wet ground, rather than repeating a standard design along its entire length.

A stone drainage channel discovered in a section of the fortification also reveals a response to the drainage problem. The researchers suggest that its construction may have been associated with major repairs in the 17th century. The channel allowed water to flow out of the city towards the river after the fortification itself had impeded natural runoff. In wooden buildings along the river, archaeologists found layers of sand and small areas of wooden decking that helped make damp courtyards usable; wooden barrels were used for drainage in the undercrofts. These finds do more than illustrate an abstract notion of ‘dampness’: they reveal specific ways of living with it.

Was Velikaya Street the oldest road in Zaryadye?

The Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage's 2015 publication described Velikaya Street as a 12th–13th-century road leading from the Kremlin to the landing stage. The later field report for excavation area No. 7 near Mokrinsky Lane did not confirm this dating for the route investigated. Archaeologists date this road to the late 15th century; wooden paving probably appeared in the second half of the 16th century. The customs yard is documented in written sources from the 16th century onwards. This does not mean that the riverbank was previously empty: people used the area, but the archaeological deposits do not justify extending the history of this particular paved road back by three centuries.

The lower layers explain this caution. Beneath the later roadway lay a damp layer containing various small objects, while archaeologists observed impressions on the surface of the natural ground, possibly left by hooves. Meadow grasses predominated in the pollen record; pollen from rye, barley, wheat, flax, peas and buckwheat was also present. This combination could reflect animal manure and decayed straw, but the researchers present this as an interpretation, rather than direct evidence of a pasture. Traces of movement along the riverside strip are not equivalent to a wooden roadway or a row of household plots.

Comparing excavation area No. 7 with the district as a whole reveals the source of the error. For Zaryadye as a whole, the Institute of Archaeology considers it possible that Veliky Posad emerged in the first half of the 12th century; for the southern site excavated in 2015, a securely established sequence of deposits begins later. The 12th-century pottery sherds found near the riverbank may have been washed down from the upper part of the district. Two distinct statements are therefore valid: Zaryadye contains a settlement from Moscow's early history, and excavation area No. 7 has no proven 12th-century street. Applying the date of the district to every individual path erases precisely the distinction that the excavations revealed.

The historical plan of 1767 shows the customs yard and the later network of lanes; it helps locate the excavation within the vanished urban fabric. But an 18th-century document does not directly reflect the district's appearance in the 14th century. Archaeologists check its lines against wooden surfaces, wattle fences, ditches and layers, rather than projecting every feature backwards without evidence. This way of reading a map explains why old place names help frame a question but do not answer it on their own.

Can the appearance of the entire medieval neighbourhood be reconstructed?

Archaeology allows individual activities and phases of construction to be reconstructed, but does not provide a continuous plan of every household plot in Zaryadye. An excavation reveals a limited area. A find must be considered in relation to its layer, date, subsequent disturbances and neighbouring structures. When a later construction pit cuts through an earlier street, some of the evidence disappears; when a wooden object survives in damp ground, it offers a rare opportunity to examine material usually unavailable to researchers.

The picture of the streets is equally layered. In the eastern part of the district, the 2015 excavations uncovered three levels of wooden paving in Krivoy Lane dating from the 17th–18th centuries. When the road fell below the accumulating deposits, a new layer of paving was laid to raise it. Coins, shoe irons, small crosses and more than thirty horseshoes were found at several levels. But these finds must not be confused with objects from excavation area No. 7 near Mokrinsky Lane: the two lanes lay in different parts of Zaryadye and represent different periods.

The contrast between the letter and the hoard is revealing. More than two centuries passed between the end of the 14th century and the concealment of the coins. During that time, buildings, monetary circulation and the layout of the neighbourhood changed. The two finds cannot be woven into the history of a single family, even though both relate to financial obligations. The letter concerns a disputed payment during a journey; the hoard consists of accumulated silver coins in three vessels. Their shared theme of money does not erase the differences between these sources.

Comparing the excavation areas also changes our understanding of the district's social geography. In the eastern part, archaeologists more frequently encountered coins, seals, chess pieces and carved bone objects, while the southern riverside zone yielded fewer objects usually associated with high status. The report's authors explain the contrast by the greater dampness of the south. However, the density of finds also depends on preservation and the area investigated; it is not a census of residents' incomes. The cautious conclusion is that Zaryadye was not socially uniform, even across a few neighbouring blocks.

The letter was found in a street, so the evidence from this location primarily relates to people's movements. Excavation area No. 7 contains numerous small objects worn or carried on the person, but little household crockery, few tools and little material from substantial construction. This is consistent with objects lost while travelling along a road and does not justify describing the site as a domestic interior. The field report notes that no early residential buildings were found along part of the route. Here, therefore, ‘everyday life in Zaryadye’ primarily means the daily activities of travel, transport and exchange, rather than the kitchen of a particular family.

What researchers use as a unit of comparison also varies. In excavation area No. 7, covering 98 square metres, the authors of the comprehensive study recorded 382 individual finds. This result cannot be compared directly with data from rescue excavations of the 1940s–1960s or from areas monitored during the park's construction: methods of collection and recording changed. In 2015, the soil was excavated in horizontal spits, with regular cleaning of exposed surfaces, sorting through the soil and metal detecting; earlier expeditions did not have the same techniques for finding small metal objects. The increase in the number of seals in the new collection may reflect both the thoroughness of the search and the actual characteristics of the road investigated.

Even within a single excavation area, counting objects answers different questions. More than fifty scattered coins from the damp street deposits help trace when objects were lost; the 34,994 coins in three vessels represent a single deliberate act: concealing a hoard. Combining both figures into an ‘amount of money per square metre’ would erase the distinction between objects accumulating on a road over many years and the contents of a cellar. Here, archaeological context matters more than an impressive total.

What can be seen at the excavation site?

In Zaryadye Park, visitors can see a section of the Kitay-gorod wall reconstructed in the 20th century; the Underground Museum displays a surviving part of its 16th-century white-stone foundations. The proximity of the Moskva River helps visitors envisage the position of the southern strip of the old trading settlement. The park's official webpage specifies the location of the original fragment and how it is displayed to visitors. This physical evidence from the 16th century can be compared with the earlier layers described by archaeologists. But the letter, weights and hoard are not lying on the surface beside a park path.

A walk through the park offers a view of the reconstructed section of wall and the position of the old trading settlement in relation to the Moskva River. Scholarly publications provide an object's layer and date; visitors see only selected exhibits. Displays and visiting arrangements change, so whether a particular object is on display should be checked against the museum's current information. The archaeological conclusions do not depend on whether all the finds mentioned can be seen in a single visit.

What conclusions can be drawn from the Zaryadye finds?

The finds reveal an inhabited district connected to roads and trade: people used writing for business messages, marked goods with seals, lived among wooden streets and drainage channels, and stored money. Each of these conclusions rests on its own type of evidence and dating. Together, they provide a more detailed picture of the medieval neighbourhood, while leaving questions about individual owners, motives and the scale of trade unanswered.

If this article has sparked your interest in a tour of Zaryadye, the programme Moscow sightseeing tour by car includes an option for a walk from Red Square through part of Zaryadye Park. On site, you can see the reconstructed section of the Kitay-gorod wall and relate the present-day area to the layers described by archaeologists; the route description does not include a visit to the Underground Museum or viewing the finds mentioned in this article.

Sources

1. Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage. From a digital resource to an atlas of Moscow’s archaeological heritage
2. State Historical and Cultural Expert Assessment Report on the Area near Kitaygorodsky Proyezd
3. Zaryadye Park. Kitay-Gorod Wall
4. L. A. Belyaev, A. A. Gippius, A. A. Zaliznyak. Birch-bark letter Moscow-4: results of a comprehensive study
5. L. A. Belyaev, N. I. Savelyev, S. B. Grigoryan. Excavations in Zaryadye, Archaeological Discoveries of 2015
6. K. Voronin, M. Moloshnikova. Building the park: archaeological work in 2015–2016, Moscow Heritage
7. Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 1946 — continued excavations in Zaryadye
8. Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Recent discoveries by the Institute’s archaeologists: excavations in Zaryadye in 2015
9. Moscow Heritage. No. 6 (42), 2015: ‘A Wealth of Information and a Hoard of Coins’
10. Radius Tour Bureau. Moscow sightseeing tour by car