The tower is closed.

The Trading Court and the Gate Tower were designed and built at the end of the XVII century by a stone mason Gury Vakhromeev (who also designed and built the first stone bridge over the Volkhov River and Prechistenskaya Tower of the Kremlin. Afterwards the complex of the Trading Court was reconstructed several times. As a result, only the Gate Tower of the XVII century and the Arcade of the Trading Court, built in the second half of the XVIII century, have survived to the present day. The Gate Tower, so called Gridnitsa or Yaroslav’s Tower is the example of over-the-gate buildings of unpopular nature, which became widespread at the end of the XVII century.

The question of the appointment of a tower still remains open because builders abandoned the initial architectural idea. The project of the Gate Tower wasn’t realized. It turned into the unassertive building, where all these years different institutions were placed: a city magistrate, «an orphan’s court», «a mandative chamber», an orphanage and a city college.

Until the Great Patriotic War rooms of the Gate Tower were intended for accomodation and archive. In 1941-1943 buildings of the Trading Court were destroyed. The Tower also suffered. Restoration works were carried out in 1950th by architects V.N. Zakharova and S.N. Davydov and in 1990th by G.M. Shtender.

Nowadays the Gate Tower became another museum building, which is open for visitors. The exhibition, located in the halls of the three tiers of the Gate Tower, displays the brightest samples of Christian antiquities. For example, works of molded plastic of the XI-XV centuries: crosses (different by types and purpose), amulets-coils, pectoral icons, folding panagias, unique flabellas, samples of church vessels; items of church usage of the XVII-XIX centuries – patens, asterisks, plates, scuff plates, tabernacles, arks, a washstand, made, generally, of tin; goods of Old Believers’ workshops of the end of the XVII-XIX centuries.

At the unique exhibition Christian antiquities. Artistic metal of the XI–XIX centuries, located in the halls of the three tiers of the Gate Tower, over 300 monuments of artistic metal are exhibited. Generally this is crosses, amulets, miniature icons and church items.

The collection of artistic metal of cultic nature takes an important place among collections of the Novgorod State United Museum and counts about three thousand monuments of Christian culture.

At the exhibition over 300 items are exhibited. This collection is represented for the first time in such number. Visitors have a nice opportunity not only to see the exhibition but also to walk up the viewing platform of the Gate Tower.