ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: B-3
Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (RGIA)
[Russian State Historical Archive]Agency: Federal'noe arkhivnoe agentstvo Rossii (Rosarkhiv)
[Federal Archival Agency of Russia]
Address: 195112, St. Petersburg, Zanevskii prosp., 36
Telephone: (812) 438-55-20, 438-55-54
Fax: (812) 438-55-94
Reading room: 438-55-54
E-mail: fgurgia@mail.ru
Website: http://www.fgurgia.ru/; http://www.rusarchives.ru/federal/rgia/
Opening hours: M–Th 10:00–17:00, F 10:00–16:00
(Summer [2010]: 12 July–12 August closed)
Transport: metro: Ladozhskaia (10 minutes’ walk); troll.: 1, 22; bus: 24, 27
Director: Aleksandr Rostislavovich Sokolov (tel. 438-55-20)
Deputy Director: Ol'ga Dmitrievna Amosova (tel. 438-55-40)
Deputy Director: Evgenii Mikhailovich Miletin (tel. 438-55-30)
Deputy Director: Irina Viacheslavovna Nikolaeva (tel. 438-55-70)
About RGIA
RGIA holds the major records of high-level and central state and administrative institutions and agencies of the Russian Empire from the nineteenth century to 1917 (except the records of the Army, Navy, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Further consolidation bought additional fonds of prerevolutionary social organizations, institutions, and many prominent individuals. The archive received its present name in June 1992; earlier TsGIA, from 1941(1944)–1961 it was known as TsGIAL.
Since the revolution RGIA and its predecessors occupied the historic buildings of the prevolutionary Governing Senate, Holy Synod, and State Council on the Neva Embankment, where most of the massive central records of the Russian Empire were consolidated after 1917. Since 1991, discussions were underway including international consultations about a new contemporary building for the archive. The situation reached a crisis proportion and bitter debates followed, when a late 2002 a presidential decree turned the historic buildings over to municipal authorities. Plans for the new building were soon underway, and many fonds were closed for research by 2003 and research facilities reduced; the archive was completely closed to researchers in Spring 2005. The new RGIA building was essentially completed by early 2006 and transfer was underway of the 7.2 million archival files during the year. The new building of archive was open for researchers in fall 2008.