The Russian site, to which the NYT links ( http://gramoty.ru ) contains, among others, this article - http://gramoty.ru/?id=general_info - that also explains that the letters were in most of the cases scratched with a metal stylus. Only two letters in the collection, so the same article, were written in ink (no mention of etching as far as I could see). And yes, there is definitely plenty of birch (as well as cultural references to it and birch-bark-handicrafts) in Russia!

best, 
Andrey Klebanov

On 20.10.2014, at 17:52, Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

Interesting.  Thanks!

So, was birch bark as a writing surface invented multiple times independently?

And is the Russian version thicker than the Kashmiri, to support etching?

​Best,
Dominik
​

On 20 October 2014 14:56, Stefan Baums <baums@lmu.de> wrote:
Dear Dominik and Matthew,

yes, plenty of birch in Russia. And the letters are incised
in the bark. Here two photos where that is more clearly
visible:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_bark_manuscript#mediaviewer/File:Beresta.jpg
   http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/Novgorodwoodp.html (scroll down)

It am not sure whether ink was rubbed into the incisions
(palm‐leaf style), but this may have been unnecessary since
the incision made the darker lower bark visible through the
light outer layer.

All best,
Stefan

--
Dr. Stefan Baums
Institute for Indian and Tibetan Studies
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

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