in 1653, patriarch nikon (who supervised the work of the print yard) sent a scientific expedition to the east. its leader a.sukhanov brought five hundred greek manuscripts from mount athos to moscow. these books laid the foundation for the library of the moscow print yard. in 1681, they opened a greek school on the premises of the printing house. by the end of the 17th century, the staff of the print yard had already numbered 165 people. it was placed under the authority of the big palace prikaz (приказ большого дворца) and published the so-called menology books ("анфологион", or anfologion, 1660), polemical works, translations, textbooks ("букварь", or primer by vasily burtsov-protopopov, 1634; "грамматика", or grammar by meletiy smotritsky, 1648; "арифметика", or arithmetics by leonty magnitsky, 1703 etc.). all in all, the moscow print yard published 30 books (1000 copies each) between the late 16th – early 17th centuries. proofreaders andronik timofeyev nevezha and ivan andronikov nevezha influenced the formation of a certain style of moscow cyrillic editions of the 17th century. karion istomin is known to have worked at the print yard first as a proofreader (since 1682) and then its inspector (1698-1701).