Winter days are short. But the work was urgent — there could be no delay. Into the hands of Dionisy, bishop of Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal and Gorodets, had come ancient handwritten books recounting the history of Rus from the earliest *Tales of Bygone Years*, and it was unthinkable to let such an important find be lost. The pages crumbled at the lightest touch; the text was barely legible. Clearly these books — written at some unknown time — had suffered greatly: they had been saved from fires, from damp, and from thieves. From thieves above all. For it was not the first time that foreigners had tried to argue that Rus had no ancient roots, that it had appeared from nowhere — and indeed that there was no Rus at all, since it was nothing other than Tartaria, bordered to the west by Lithuania and the Livonian Order with the Swedes.

The worsening relations with the Golden Horde made the need for self-assertion and patriotic spirit all the more pressing. Dionisy consulted with Grand Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich, and together they resolved to restore the old books and append to them a new chronicle. The task was entrusted to a young monk of the Voznesenskiy Pecherskiy Muzhskoy Monastery, Lavrentiy, and his assistants. Time was pressing. They could not, of course, foresee that the Battle of Kulikovo would take place three years hence, yet they knew that a decisive clash between the Russian principalities and the Horde was inevitable — and not far off. It was not Dionisy, nor the monastery, nor the Nizhny Novgorod prince — who, in anticipation of fresh confrontations with the enemy, had set about building a stone kremlin and had already completed the massive gatehouse tower later known as the Dmitrievskaya — who needed the restored Russian history first begun by Nestor; all of Rus needed it, as an unshakeable spiritual foundation. And so Lavrentiy, filled with inspiration, threw himself into the worthy task. By day — in the meager light that filtered through the mica pane of his cell window; in the evening and at night — by oil lamp or candle. He and his assistant (or assistants) began each session with prayer and ended each session with prayer as well. They slept little, guarding every hour, and worked themselves to exhaustion. They wrote exclusively with swan or goose quills — and occasionally peacock quills. They dipped their pens into "eternal" ink, made from a mixture of kvass, honey, cherry gum, oak or alder bark, and old iron. The quills were cut with great care; the writing — letter by letter — was set down in ustav or semi-ustav script with the utmost diligence. They left space on the parchment for colored headpieces, which were painted in Byzantine purple, gold or silver, and orange antimony. They allowed themselves no respite. And they managed to accomplish their devoted labor in a remarkably short time: from 14 January to 20 March 1377. Lavrentiy concluded the chronicle with words that eased his heart: *"The merchant rejoices when he has made his profit, the helmsman when he has reached calm harbor, and the traveler when he has returned to his homeland — so too does the scribe rejoice when he reaches the end of his book; and so do I, humble, unworthy, and greatly sinful servant of God, the monk Lavrentiy…"* At the very end he felt it necessary to apologize to his readers: *"And now, masters, fathers and brethren, wherever I have written in error, or recopied wrongly, or left something incomplete, read it and correct it, for God's sake, and do not curse me — for the books were old and worn, and my mind is young and fell short…"* The humble monk understood, of course, what a great deed he had accomplished — yet he did not overstate his own merits, as was the custom in the ways of Rus. The oldest surviving Old Russian chronicle, known by the name of its author as the Laurentian Chronicle, came several centuries later into the collection of a noble manuscript collector: Alexei Ivanovich Musin-Pushkin, count, privy councillor, and president of the Imperial Academy of Arts under Catherine the Second. Word reached him that an envoy of the English king intended to buy the manuscript from him at any price. To avoid tempting fate, Musin-Pushkin presented the chronicle as a gift to Catherine's grandson, the future Emperor Alexander Pavlovich. The Laurentian Chronicle remains in Russia as its priceless heritage.