He had also edited a number of important journals and primary sources, including works on medieval Russian law, sphragistics and epigraphy, archaeology and history.

[1] Yanin finished his secondary education in 1946, graduating with a Gold Medal; he matriculated at Moscow State University in 1951.

This was published as The Monetary and Weight Systems of Medieval Russia ("Денежно-весовые системы русского средневековья") and has become a classic.

Yanin's monograph about the seals of Ancient Rus (2 volumes, 1970) summed up half a century of Soviet sphragistics research.

After that, Yanin turned his attention to the birch bark documents of Novgorod, on which he was considered the greatest living authority (alongside Andrey Zaliznyak).