Archives of Russia: The new building of the State Archive opened in the Smolensk region

The new building of the State Archive of the Smolensk region was inaugurated in Smolensk on March 11, 2013, as said at the press-service of the city administration. The State Archives building was one of the objects, built on the preparation program to the 1150^th anniversary of Smolensk. 

The State Archive of the Smolensk region, established on May 19, 1919, is one of the richest regional archives in Russia. It houses more than a million archive files, including ancient monuments of the XVII - XXI centuries: parish registers, census stories, a collection of documents on land ownership, local government, the province maps, city plans, contemporary documentary sources on the history of the Smolensk region. Until recently, all the documents were stored in six buildings, where were not kept the necessary conditions for their maintenance, there were not normal conditions for employees. It is planned that the new building should solve the problems.

The presence of additional spaces in the new building allowed starting the work on the transmission of documents to the electronic form, the application in information and communications technology. For historians and ethnographers it is organized the special reading room for 35 people with the necessary computer equipment and comfortable working conditions with historical sources.