The collection consists of receipt books and expenses books of the Moscow Printing House, Russia's first publisher, in the period 1620-1700. The receipt books contain information regarding the sales of publications, the number of copies printed, dissemination of publications, book prices, etc. The expenses books contain information regarding the workers' wages, and the amounts paid for equipment and other material. The materials provide insights into the way in which books were produced and traded, allowing researchers to establish the paper and the typeset used, and the construction of certain tools and devices. The collection contains data on book stocks and the number of books in circulation, on editions that were not kept, the price of new books, their preparation for printing, the geography of book sales, and the buyers of different types of an edition.

The data on the residence and social status of the buyer were almost always recorded in receipt books. The copybooks can even be used to trace the history of each individual edition prepared by the Moscow Printing House. The collection provides materials for scholars studying the social, political, or ecenomic history of seventeenth-century Russia, or more specifically, the history of the Russian Church. The collection also contains information on the schism of the Russian Church, the restoration of the economy after the Time of Troubles, the uprisings, and epidemics in the 17th century, and information on merchants, both Russian and foreign, from whom these or those goods were bought.

In the 1630s it employed some 120 people, and by the middle of the century this number had risen to 150. The first secular book, "Uchenie i khitrost’ ratnogo stroenieiia pekhotnykh liudei", was printed in 1647. By 1679 the quarters of the Pechatnyi dvor had been enlarged to accommodate its increased activities. In 1708 the first book printed with "Grazhdanskii shrift", entitled "Geometriia" appeared. In 1712 with the establishment of a printing press in Saint Petersburg part of the presses of the Pechatnyi dvor were transferred there. In 1721 the Pechatnyi dvor and its buildings in Moscow became the headquarters of the Sinodal’naia tipografiia, which remained in operation until 1917.

907 microfiche + online finding aid

Online finding aid in English, with a container list in Russian.