Since 2005 in the framework of the reconstruction activities in the Eastern Wing of the General Staff building there have been conducted the archaeological survey of the occupation layer. This territory was developed back in the first quarter of the XVIII century. Before the group of buildings for the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance (architect K. Rossi, 1820-1830) was erected, it had been occupied by a residential district located between the river Moika and Palace Square. In 2005-2006 the works progressed in the context of the pre-project survey, since 2009 they have been an integral part of the implementation of the 1st stage of reconstruction of the General Staff building Eastern Wing.
In 2005 the Sector of Archaeology and Architecture of the State Hermitage in association with Mikhailov's Architectural Studio carried out a series of explorations in the yards and rooms (in the basements, on the ground floor) of the buildings of the General Staff Eastern Wing. 33 architectural-archaeological pits were dug. Numerous elements of the original appearance of the building that had been previously lost were identified and secured: such as staircases, door and window openings, floors. Design of the building foundations, technological particulars of their installation, location of the foundation strips, sequence of the erection stages were studied in detail. The heavy foundations, which are laid 2.5 m deep, were proved to have been erected using the technique of trenches and piles. The works of 2005 were intended to solve the tasks of architecture and engineering, and the pits in the yards were laid not in the central areas, but right beside the foundations, that is within the Staff construction pit, however, the cultural layer of the XVIII century was registered even in them (particularly, in the fourth yard).
In 2006 the works were resumed, but then their primary mission was to secure the lines of the stone sewer tunnels engineered in the process of the Staff construction, as well as to clarify the nature of the cultural layer on the territory of the yards. The survey was focused on the 5th yard where three trial pits having the total area of approximately 13 sq. m. were excavated.
Based on the activities of 2005-2006 the cultural layer of the XVIII century was ascertained to exist on the territory of the 4th and 5th yards.
In February - beginning of March, 2009, in the context of implementation of the project on restoration and capital repairs of the Eastern Wing of the General Staff building, the members of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences with assistance of the Sector of Archaeology and Architecture of the State Hermitage carried out archaeological survey works on the territories of the 5th and 4th yards. Four trenches 2 m wide and of approximately 120 m in area were explored. Three trenches were dug on the territory of the 5th yard and one - in the 4th yard.
Thus, the survey conducted on the territory of the 5th and 4th yards of the General Staff Eastern Wing resulted in discovery of the XVIII century archaeological layer having thickness of 0.4 - 0.7 m and containing the remains of the XVIII century layout design and development of the district between the Moika and the Tsaritsyn Meadow, the Bolshaya Lugovaya street, with the fragments of stone and wooden structures full of finds.
In the course of the works rich material of over 500 finds was collected. It is primarily presented by fragments of so-called Dutch white clay tobacco pipes (Fig. 29), some of them bear brands and ornament. Many various pieces of ceramics, including bits of several vessels, were collected. Debris of glass bottles, wine glasses, window glass were found in abundance and a whole window framing was discovered. A fragment of a lead sash is available. Lots of pieces of blue-and-white pottery, bits of painted ornamented tiles, tiles, individual items made of iron and bone are all among the finds. The high level of the groundwater facilitates preservation of organic materials in the cultural layer. Such finds include individual wooden items, a birch bark bast shoe, fragments of leather shoes. It is quite possible that some of the finds can be attributed to the beginning of the XVIII century.

Consequently, the archaeological survey completed on the territory of the yards of the Eastern Wing of the General Staff building established that the occupation layer of the XVIII - beginning of the XIX centuries has been preserved here, as well as the remains of the stone structures of that period.