Russian State Archive of Military History

Address: 2-ia Baumanskaia ul., 3
Metro: Baumanskaia

Exiting the metro, turn left through a pedestrian area onto Ladozhskaia ul., then right onto Volkhovskii per. Follow this road to a large traffic-light controlled junction and cross diagonally. The archive is the large yellow building on the left. (In reality, just follow the crowds of students heading from the metro towards the Russian New University).

Web: http://www.rusarchives.ru/federal/rgvia
Phone: (499) 261-20-70; reading room: (499) 267-44-62
Archive Director: Irina Olegovna Garkusha

Opening Hours: Monday - Thursday: 0945-1700
Friday: 0945-1545 The sanitarnyi den' is the last Friday of each month. The reading room is closed during August.

Go through the unmarked door on the right side under the arch to the police desk. Tell the police officer that you want to register with the archive: they will tell you to use the phone on the counter to call the reading room. Explain to the reading room that you want to register and they will tell you to pass the phone to the police officer who will then allow you to proceed. Go out through the door to the left of the counter, turn left and then immediately right onto the main path leading through the archive grounds. Best to stay on the left side of the path as there is a (chainedup) guard dog to the right of the path. Go under the arch at the end of the path, turn left and the archive entrance is on the left. The garderob is immediately inside; the reading room upstairs.

Indexes to opisi are on a table to the right of the reading room service window. Opisi have to be ordered, but those of the most heavily-used fondy are available in the reading room. They must be requested from the archivists: one of them will get the opis' from the cupboards at the back of the room. Return opisi to the archivists - do not try to put them back in the cupboard yourself. Trebovaniia for dela are available to the left of the service window: readers can have a maximum of 5 dela at any one time (this includes both dela actually on your desk and those in the process of being ordered). As well as limits on the number of dela an individual can order, the archive also restricts the total number of dela that can be fetched from the stacks each day. While dela will usually be ready on the 3rd day after ordering, handing in an order early in the day may mean they will arrive more quickly. The archivist will tell you exactly which day dela will arrive. RGVIA is housed in the 18th century former Lefortovo palace - the building is beginning to be restored, and some sets of fondy are closed as a result (they are listed on the RGVIA website).

The RGVIA reading room is small, with only 24 seats for readers. Some days, it fills up quickly and a queue develops: best to get there early. There is a separate microfilm reading room with 8 seats. The opis' cupboard also contains copies of the 4-volume printed putevoditel' to RGVIA (Rosspen, 2006). Ask for this in the same way as opisi. There are power sockets for laptops available. Toilets are at the top of the staircase up to the reading room and are presentable. RGVIA has no stolovaia, but readers can leave their dela on their desk and go out of the archive for lunch - there are a couple of good cafes directly opposite the archive (Kaffeteria does a set lunch for 230 Rub. - and if you tell the staff you are a student or academic, there's a 15% discount).