NOVGOROD: DIVERS LOOK FOR MEDIEVAL BRIDGE REMNANTS ON RIVER BOTTOM

RIA Novosti, Russia
May 03, 2005

NOVGOROD VELIKI, May 3 (RIA Novosti, Andrei Letyagin) – Diver
archeologists are searching for the ruins of a medieval bridge on the
Volkhov river bottom in Novgorod Veliki, in the country’s northwest-one
of Russia’s longest-established cities.

As Novgorodian chronicles have it, the bridge, known as Great, was
built late in the 10th century into the turn of the 11th, to collapse
in the 17th.

The INTAS international research foundation, with headquarters in
Brussels, Belgium, is financing the search on a project roughly
estimated at 100,000 Euros. The Great Bridge endeavor also envisages
search for medieval bridges on their tentative underwater sites in
Venice, Paris and Armenia.

Novgorod Diving Club activists have for now scanned the Volkhov bottom
in the city’s historical heart-the citadel vicinity, to come across
objects that resemble bridge piers.

“We can’t yet say for sure they are really piers-there is too much
debris cluttering the river bottom along that stretch of the Volkhov.
There are logs and other large objects stocked up over the centuries,”
say experts.

Divers will go on with their job, June and July next. If their
conjecture proves correct, archeologists will saw off samples of the
wooden piers to precisely determine their age.

The bridge used to stretch across the Volkhov from the citadel to
the prince’s palace, which were just opposite each other.

The search is expected to take two years or so. Activists of the
Novgorod Amateur History Society will eventually join Diving Club
volunteers on the efforts.

The INTAS intends to hold a research conference in Novgorod, within
the month, for people involved in Project Great Bridge.
From: Baghdasarian