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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: B-9

Last update of repository: 2 December 2020

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv nauchno-tekhnicheskoi dokumentatsii (RGANTD)


Holdings

Total: 575 collections and fonds, 759,204 units, 1865–2019
scientific-technical documents—387,795 units (1865–2017); administrative documents—108,792 units (1888–2017); personal papers—48,415 units (1899–2015); personnel records—890,632 units (1939–2018); films, phographs, audio and video records—133,570 units (1904–2019)

RGANTD serves as a centralized repository for documentation from the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, created from the activity of all-union institutions located on the territory of the Russian Federation. This includes scientific, technical and construction documentation, along with some related research, design, and managerial records as well as some personal papers from the Soviet period, except for local Moscow institutions (D–1) and those from St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast (D–20). In addition, the archive retains some scientific research and construction documentation with technical drafts from the prerevolutionary period, which was accessioned within institutional complexes in RGNTA, although, as a rule, such documentation is stored in state historical archives.
        Holdings from former RGNTA can be divided into six basic groups of fonds according to their origin: (1) scientific research institutions in the realm of industry, construction, transportation, and communication; (2) construction and technological institutes and bureaus, irrespective of their controlling agency; (3) industrial design and prospecting institutes; (4) records of the Russian State Patent Library (formerly the All-Union Technical Patent Library) as an all-Russian central branch agency for scientific research information; and (5) documentation from branches of above-mentioned institutions and their predecessor agencies. In addition (6) the archive has a number of fonds of personal papers of well-known scientists, scholars, inventors, production organizers, and civil, aeronautic, and industrial engineers.
        Now a seventh complex comprises the holdings from the former Center for Space Documentation (RNITsKD), namely the varied documentation on different media relating to space exploration, all of which significantly broadens the range of scientific-technical documentation in the space field.

        Fonds from former RNITsKD

The previously separate Center for Space Documentation (RNITsKD), which is now a part of RGANTD, brought together a wide variety of documentation–administrative records, scientific-technical documents, film, photographs, sound recordings, and videotapes, along with telemetric and machine-readable data–relating to the history of Russian space-rocket technology and space exploration. Materials have come from state scientific research institutes, design and construction bureaus, scientific research divisions, business enterprises, military units, television and radio-broadcasting companies, film studios, press information agencies, higher educational establishments, and social organizations.
        Subject-oriented complexes of documents have been accessioned from the USSR Ministries of the Aviation Industry (Minaviaprom), General Machine Construction (Minobshchemash), Communications (Minsviazi), and Health (Minzdrav), from the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the State Committee for Cinematography (Goskino), the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting (Gosteleradio), the Novosti Press Agency (APN), and the TASS newsreel service. Recently the archive began to accession records from the Russian Space Agency, the Institute for Space Research, and the Institute of Medical Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
        Film and photographs extend from the creation of the first Soviet missiles in 1937 to contemporary international space flights. These provide visual documentation of the activities of the first scientific research and experimental design agencies for space exploration–the Group for Investigation of Jet Propulsion (Gruppa izucheniia reaktivnogo dvizheniia—GIRD), the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (Gazodinamicheskaia laboratoriia—GDL), and the Jet Propulsion Scientific Research Institute (Reaktivnyi nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut—RNII). There are valuable photographs of Iu.A. Gagarin, the first cosmonaut; S.P. Korolev, the chief spaceship construction engineer; and K.E. Tsiolkovskii, the founder of modern space science. International cooperation in the realm of space exploration is well demonstrated in film and photographs, including those from the joint Soviet-American project “EPAS.” There are also films acquired from NASA lunar expeditions.
        Audio records include in-flight recordings from the “Ship-to-Earth” system dating from 1961–1993. Separate subject-oriented groups within this complex encompass recorded tapes with data on biomedical and technological experiments and astrophysical observations in orbit, along with the accomplishments of spaceship crews and orbital space stations.
        The center's scientific-technical documentation includes drafts and project designs for the first geophysical rocket models, the first super-heavy rocket launcher for space vehicles “N-1,” lunar orbital vehicles, the spaceships “Vostok,” “Voskhod,” “Soiuz,” and “Progress,” and the permanent skylab “Saliut,” among others.
        The archive preserves the personal papers of scientists working in the realm of space-rocket technology and space exploration, including the early cosmonauts, and recorded memoirs by specialists in various civilian and military agencies–from leading engineers to ministers. In addition, there are materials gathered by archival initiatives to document important events and individuals connected with the history of space exploration.

        Fonds from the former RGNTA Moscow Branch

Before June 1995, the branch served as a provisional repository for various complexes of documents, some destined for transfer to RGNTA in Samara. These consist of the records of head, branch, and interbranch agencies in the realm of science and technology that were under the authority of all-union and union-republic umbrella agencies. There are also personal papers of famous engineers, production managers, scientists, and specialists of industrial design and construction.
        The holdings include a large amount of industrial design, construction, and scientific research documentation from the central ministries of the USSR and the RSFSR in the realm of manufacturing and industry, together with documentation from institutions subordinate to them–industrial design and technological scientific research institutes, industrial combines and their chief departments, along with their administrative records.
        The energy field is represented by fonds of the All-Union Scientific Research and Planning Institute “VNIPIEnergoprom” (1974–1980) and the A.A. Skochinskii Institute of Mining (Institut gornogo dela—IGD, 1961–1970). There are several groups of records in the field of metallurgy (ferrous and non-ferrous), such as fonds of agencies under the Main Administration for Non-Ferrous Metallurgy, Gold, Platinum, and Rare Elements, and their successor agencies (up to 1975), along with the fond of the All-Union Scientific Research and Construction Institute “Tsvetmetavtomatika” (VNIKI “Tsvetmetavtomatika”) (1929–1975).
        There are records of industrial design and scientific research institutes in the gas and oil industry, along with those of the State Committee for the Fuel Industry of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and its subordinate structures. These fonds include scientific-technical specification for oil refineries in the Suez (Egypt), Santiago (Cuba), Izmir (Turkey), and the state of Hydgarate (India), among others, which were built and serviced abroad with the aid of Soviet specialists.
        The archive also retains fonds of scientific research institutes, industrial design and construction bureaus in the realm of instrument-making, communications, building construction, and technical aesthetics.
        Personal papers include those of watertower builder V.G. Shukhov (1853–1939), metallurgist A.I. Tselikov (1904–1985), steam turbine specialist A.V. Shchegliaev (1902–1970), professors D.D. Barkan (1904–1987), O.K. Giller (1866–1942), M.I. Gorbunov-Posadov (1908–1991), and L.P. Zherebov (1863–1958).


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted