Fascinating summer with the Presidential Library: How to feel like a real scientist

During summer holidays, many start to wonder: how to better spend their free time, or where to go with their families and friends for it to be exciting and educational. The Presidential Library provides interesting activities for everyone.

The Presidential Library is a cultural, scientific and educational, information and analytical centre located in the historical building of the Synod in the heart of St. Petersburg near the main monuments of the city.

The electronic reading room on Senate Square, 3, and about 1400 remote electronic reading rooms all over Russia provide access to over a million depository items – electronic copies of historical documents and audio-visual materials never before available to the general public. The Presidential Library regularly hosts excursions, exhibitions and film screenings. The atmosphere of the historical building of the Synod, interiors of which match the stylistics of the XIX century, is especially impressive.

The Presidential Library’s portal features numerous archival documents associated with the Russian language, theory, history and practice of Russian statehood. Nevertheless, this is only a part of the Library’s digital collections. The full access to the collections is available only in the reading room on Senate Square, 3, and the remote electronic reading rooms of the Presidential Library. The digitized materials of the collections are a reliable information source for the preparation of all types of scientific and research works: theses, graduation papers, course papers, articles and reports.

In addition, only visitors to the electronic reading rooms have access to such services, as saving found information, ordering copies of the materials, etc. Readers are able to view historical documents, maps, photographs and reproductions in high resolution in their personal accounts. It is hard to achieve this kind of detailing even by using a magnifying glass.

The work areas of the electronic reading room on Senate Square, 3, are equipped with modern technology and are stylized as the desks of the Synod’s employees, who worked in this building in the middle XIX – early XX centuries. The windows offer a beautiful view on famous cultural monuments of St. Petersburg – Saint Isaac’s Cathedral and the Bronze Horseman. All of this contributes to the productive work with historical documents and allows visitors to feel themselves like real scientists or researches.

Becoming a reader of the Presidential Library is very easy. In order to do this, it is necessary to have a passport and to fill up a short application form that is available to download on the institution’s website or to receive in the reading room.

The Presidential Library is located at: St. Petersburg, Senate Square, 3.

From July 1 to August 31, 2022 the Presidential Library is open according to the summer schedule:

Monday - Friday: from 11:00 to 19:00 (entrance to the building is until 18:00),

Saturday, Sunday - days off.

For organizing tours of the building and exhibitions of the Presidential Library please call +7 (812) 334-25-14, email: excursion@prlib.ru.

Entrance to the Presidential Library is carried out upon showing an identity document (a passport). Access to the building of the Presidential Library can be limited during the period of mass and official events. Information about changes in the mode of the Presidential Library is available on the portal www.prlib.ru