Central State Archive of the Highest Organs of Government and Administration - Former State Archive

Address: 03110, Kyiv, Vul. Solom'yans'ka, 24

The archive is unhelpfully located quite far from any metro stations. Trolleybus no. 40 goes from Dvorets sportu metro station to the Solom'yans'kyi market for 3UAH and takes around 20-25 minutes. If you are on a metro line, go to Vokzal'na. Then you will need to catch a marshrutka, so cross the road where various minibuses are parked, and at the side of McDonalds you should look for bus number 198. This runs every 10 minutes or so and only costs 4UAH. You should ride the bus until you reach Solom'yan'skyi market and get out right next to said marketplace (best to ask a fellow passenger the first time you go). Walk down the road to the left of the market (perpendicular to the road you arrived on), for a couple of minutes. The entrance to the archive corpus is on the right, and is through some large green gates with a small guard post next to them.

Metro: Vokzal'na (see notes)

Web: http://www.archives.gov.ua/Archives/index.php?ca01

Email: tsdavo@archives.gov.ua
Phone: (044) 275-36-66
Fax: (044) 275-12-55

Archive Director: Nataliya Vasylivna Makovs'ka

Opening Hours:
Monday-Thursday: 0900 - 1800
Friday: 0900 - 1645

The Sanitarnyi den' is the last working day of the month. The archive is open throughout the summer months.

On your first visit, show your letter and passport to the guards at the gate. You then turn right and follow the path when it turns left round the internal square of the courtyard. Enter the first door you see (which is attached to a jutting-out 'porch' attached to the building with a Ukrainian flag above), where you will find another guard. Give your letter and passport to the woman in the glass booth there, and she will issue you with a temporary propusk. You then go through the turnstile and go up the stairs to the second floor. When you get to this floor, take the door to the right of the stairs and walk down that corridor. Take a left when you can and continue along, checking the doors on the right hand side of the corridor for the one labelled reading room - it is room 72. There you will be able to hand in your letter, possibly be directed to a nearby office for the director to sign your letter and who knows what else, and you should then be issued with a propusk.

Although the archivist doesn't mention this (and may not offer to replace your temporary pass with a permanent one unless you ask), the guards at the entrance to the archive seem to expect you to attach a photo to your propusk, otherwise 'what kind of documentation is it?'

Order forms are on the archivists' desk. Orders made before 1400 arrive the next day. The maximum order is 10 files per day.

The reading room is not huge, but still has plenty of room. It is air-conditioned during the summer which will make it a very attractive place after the marshrutka ride to get there!

Many of the archivists are very helpful and friendly here, but you may encounter some difficulties speaking Russian rather than Ukrainian. Persistence, politeness and playing up your foreigner status will get good results. On the plus side, the atmosphere is relatively relaxed. On the downside, this occasionally makes it hard to predict small details like whether your propusk will be kept by the archivist or handed back to you on any given morning and which of the archivists to ask for your files.

As elsewhere in Ukraine, some or all of the finding aids are being translated into Ukrainian from Russian. Take a dictionary and/or beg the archivists to give you the Russian language originals. The files themselves remain in Russian if that was their original language. In TsDAVO the original putevoditel' in Russian is still available with the newer versions in the archivists' area next to the reading room proper.

There is no stolovaia. However, the Solom'yan'skyi market is right next to the archive, where you can buy various foods, though most of it unprepared. There is a small café in amongst the stalls that makes good soup and sells other dishes quite cheaply.