The Old Novgorod or Old Novgorodian dialect was the East Slavic variety used in the city of Veliky Novgorod and its surrounding area. It is mainly known from medieval birch bark writings dating to the 11th to 15th centuries. Andrey Zaliznyak distinguished it from "supra-dialectal Old Russian". Other manuscripts have also shown distinct north Russian dialect forms, in addition to the birch bark letters.