Number of items: 1,305 Period: Last quarter of the 16th – first half of the 20th centuries The numismatic and sphragistic items held in the collection are the result of archaeological excavations conducted in the territory of modern-day St. Petersburg. On the right bank of the Okhta River, where it flows into the Neva, archaeologists discovered the Swedish city of Nyen (from the Swedish word for "Nevsky"), dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries. The original settlement, founded near the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans (1611) on Cape Okhta, Nyen (or Nienstadt) quickly became a major center of international trade, on par with such cities of the Swedish kingdom as Vyborg, Åbo (modern-day Turku), and Reval (modern-day Tallinn). By the mid-17th century, following a series of privileges granted, the city received its own coat of arms (depicting a lion standing between two rivers, holding a sword in its right paw), seal, and magistrate (city council). At various times, Nyen had a city hall, magistrates' office, market, Swedish-Finnish and German churches, schools attached to them, a port, a hospital (the only one in Ingria), a post office, and an inn. The city's development was interrupted in the autumn of 1702, when, during an offensive by Russian troops under Field Marshal B. P. Sheremetev, it was burned by order of Nyenskans commandant I. Appolov, and the population was evacuated. Soon after these events, Nyenskans also fell, renamed by Peter the Great into Schlottburg (from the Dutch for "castle-city"). Thus, the conquest of the Neva estuary finally secured Russia access to the Baltic Sea and predetermined the founding of St. Petersburg, the future capital of the empire. Excavations at the identified archaeological heritage site, "Central Part of the City of Nyen (Okhta 2): Cultural Layer," were conducted from 2023 to 2025 by the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The entire complex of individual finds will be gradually transferred to the Nyen Archaeology Foundation of the Museum, established on December 4, 2025.
