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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: B-8

Last update of repository: 2 December 2020

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv (RGVA)


Access & Facilities

Access
During the last few years, almost all of the earlier closed fonds have been declassified, with the agreement of military authorities, although some documentation containing information of state and military secrets remain closed to researchers, such as intelligence records (GRU). Some records that were open to researchers during 1992 and early 1993 were withdrawn again pending declassification.
        See Biulleten' rassekrechennykh dokumentov federal'nykh arkhivov [i tsentrov khraneniia dokumentatsii] (Moscow, 1998–), vyp. 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 for an annotated list of fonds that have been declassified through 1998–2010. Electronic version of published issues see: http://portal.rusarchives.ru/secret/. See also the database of the declassified files and documents of federal state archives on the website “Arkhivy Rossii”: http://unsecret.rusarchives.ru/.
        For RGVA (1993–2007) see the Russian-language webpage “Rassekrechivanie”: http://rgvarchive.ru/rassekrechivanie....
        Almost all fonds of foreign provenance remaining in the former Special Archive (TsGOA/TsKhIDK), part of RGVA since March 1999, are open for research.

Working conditions
Readers may order only 5 files per day instead of the usual 10, which are usually delivered within two working days after they are ordered. Many files that have been microfilmed take two or three days for delivery to the reading room. Microfilmed files and paper files must be ordered on separate demands (trebovaniia). There is now a fee for use of a notebook computer (approximately $5) which must be paid at Sverbank. Receipt of a permanent pass (postoiannyi propusk) is also now limited to those using the archive “for a year”.
        A separate reading room is no longer operated for displaced foreign archives (fonds) acquired as a result of the Second World War from the former Special Archive (TsGOA).

Copy facilities
Xerox and microfilm facilities available for limited copies. A license agreement is required for copies intended for commercial use.

Reference facilities
Archival finding aids include: opisi, card catalogues by subject and name, separate subject card indexes (for fond nos. 40,895–40,990), name indexes for several fond-collections (including fonds of staff personnel files, service records for Red Army officers, and battle fatalties of NKVD troops in the Second World War, among others), and registration opisi. An extensive card file name index for officers in the White Army (during the Civil War), covering many fonds in the archive, remains in GA RF (B–1). Electronic opisi are available on the website of the archive: http://opisi.rgvarchive.ru/.

Library facilities
An extensive library specializing in military affairs is located in RGVA, which is accessible to readers through the archival reading room.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted