Mention of the bridge connecting the Sofia and Commerce sides of Novgorod in the 10th century was found in the annals and the Facial Chronicle. The earliest of them can be found in the Ioakimovskaya chronicle, known only in the retelling of an 18th century historian Vasily Tatishchev. We are talking about the description of the baptism of Novgorod in 989-90, when, according to the chronicler, trying to resist the baptists, they dismantled part of the bridge, and installed two throwing machines on the remnants of the building.

Ancient "treasure"

For a long time, the fact of the existence of the bridge was not confirmed by anything except the chronicles. This situation was allowed to change underwater archaeological work, which since 2005 has been carried out by specialists of the Novgorod Underwater-Archeological Expedition of the Center for Underwater Archeological Heritage of the IA RAS together with the Novgorod State Museum-Reserve and the Novgorod Regional Federation of Underwater Activity (KDDR), with the support of ITC Special works "(St. Petersburg).

  • © Photo courtesy of the Institute of Archeology, RAS

In 2017, the water area of ​​Volkhov was studied by a multi-beam echo sounder, which allows to obtain a three-dimensional picture of the river bottom. On it was revealed a number of hillocks, running parallel to the route of the previously known bridge of the XII-XIII centuries.

“In March 2018, archaeologists investigated one of the sites located along the chain outside its borders. They opened a 1.5-meter cultural layer of the XIV-XVI centuries, and under it - the destroyed support of an unknown bridge over the Volkhov, ”a joint press release from the IA RAS and the Novgorod State Museum-Reserve said.

According to the results of a mass spectral analysis conducted at the Center for Radiocarbon Dating and Electron Microscopy, the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Center for Isotopic Research at the University of Georgia (USA), pine and spruce, from which the support was cut, completed their growth from 932 to 946 of the year.

“The discovery of the bridge of such an early period is a real sensation, it radically changes the existing ideas about the early topography and history of Novgorod,” said Sergey Troyanovsky, a leading researcher at the Novgorod Museum Reserve.

"High level of architectural excellence"

Archaeologists have officially confirmed that the banks of the Volkhov already in the tenth century connected a wooden bridge on log supports.

“The four pillars of the ancient bridge still rise above the bottom level in the deep part of the channel, and the pillars from the Detintsa side were covered with 1.5 meters of soil and formed a shallow plateau,” the IAA and Novgorod State Museum-Reserve said.

  • © Photo courtesy of the Institute of Archeology, RAS

“We began to dig on the shallow plateau, measuring approximately the same distance as between the visible supports, and found another support of the bridge. This confirms that these visible structures go to the ground from the Sofia side and completely cross the river as supports of bridges, ”said the head of the Novgorod Underwater-Archeological Expedition of the Center for Underwater Archaeological Heritage of the IA RAS Aivar Stepanov.

According to him, the ancient bridge was a complex engineering structure, large and very expensive, with very long spans of at least 17 m.

“A long span of wood is a very difficult constructive solution. Such structures are known in bridge building, but for the X century it was a very high level of architectural craftsmanship, ”the scientist noted.

  • © Photo courtesy of the Institute of Archeology, RAS

Archaeologists have found that the bridge was put on hedgehog supports - special wooden log cabins, which fell to the bottom, and then were filled with stones.

“Putting such wooden spans is incredibly difficult. The ancient bridge had less than 15 pillars, while the bridge of the XII-XIV centuries had 23 of them. It turns out that the spans of the ancient bridge were twice as long, ”said Stepanov.

Scientists believe that the bridge not only connected the banks of the river, but also served as a fortification. He allowed to control the passage of vessels along the Volkhov and defended rich Novgorod from a possible enemy landing at the intersection of the “Great Volga Route” and the route “From the Varangians to the Greeks”.

  • © Photo courtesy of the Institute of Archeology, RAS

“The results of Novgorod underwater archaeological research made it possible to create a new museum exhibition. The collection of artifacts numbers over 4,000 items, which show how diverse life was at the medieval Veliky Bridge of Novgorod, ”according to a press release from the IA RAS and the Novgorod State Museum Reserve.

The new museum will be located in the immediate vicinity of the place where bridges were erected over the Volkhov for several centuries - in the two-story “Guard house of the railway communications team”, which was restored in a historic building of the XIX century. The opening of the museum is scheduled for the summer of 2019.