In this book, written by a distinguished historian, academician B. L. Yanin, in a fascinating form, tells about one of the most remarkable discoveries of domestic archeology in the 20th century - the discovery of birch bark in Novgorod. The first of them was found during excavations in Novgorod on July 26, 1951, and since then their number has increased to 808 copies. The book introduces the reader to the atmosphere of archaeological everyday life with their hopes, joys and disappointments. From it, the reader learns how to find letters and how to read them, what difficulties await researchers when reading the written birch bark for the first time, how to get information from texts written on birch bark many centuries ago. But the most interesting thing is contained in the texts of birch bark .. These are letters from the past, in which Novgorodians, who lived 5-9 centuries ago, talk about their daily affairs and worries, share joys and sorrows, ask for help and threaten judicial reprisals, take care of their parents, invite them to visit and find out the relationship. The diplomas introduce the life of a medieval man, whose events have never appeared on the pages of chronicles, official documents and church books. In the new edition compared to the previous ones (1965 and 1975. ) found a vivid embodiment of the creative cooperation between history and linguistics, which arose in the study of birch bark in the early 80s. With the magnificent results of this collaboration, the reader gets acquainted throughout this book. Written in the popular scientific genre, the book is at the same time a scientific generalization of a new important source on the history of the Russian Middle Ages and is addressed to both specialists and a wide range of readers interested in Russian history.