Central State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation, St Petersburg

Address: 5 Sovetskaia Ul., dom 33, Sankt-Peterburg, 191036
Metro: Ploshchad' Vosstaniia

About 10 minutes walk from the metro: walk SE along Nevskii, turn left up Suvorskii prospect, then right along 5^th Sovetskaya ul. The archive is in a yellow, converted monastery building.

Web: https://spbarchives.ru/web/group/cgantd
Email:  cgantd@cgantd.spbarchives.ru
Phone: (812) 271-50-56

Archive Director: Uvarova Irina Anatol'evna
Chief archivist: Taradina Viktoriia Pavlovna

Opening Hours: пн., вт., ср.: 10.00 - 16.00 (обед 12.00 - 13.00); пт.: 10.00 - 15.00 (обед 12.00 - 13.00); четверг - закрыт.

Apply in advance with a formal letter addressed to archive director, with your name, topic with dates, and the objective (e.g. PhD research) of your research. You will need to show your passport and to complete a standard form with your details in the reading room and then be issued with a pass. (I had to wait four days after presenting my original letter in person at the archive for permission to work there in March 2015.)

There is a very detailed on-line catalogue, accessible only inside the archive, that allows the collection to be searched by subject, names etc, but you will need to ask for the old, printed opisi to get the full details to order dela on the forms provided by the reading room staff. You need to include on the order forms the title of the dela, dates, and number of listy, which you can get only from the old opisi. You can order quite a lot of dela at once, but they take about 3 working days to arrive.

• There are lockers in the corridor where you can lock your bag and hooks or a cupboard for coats.
• There are only four spaces for readers in the reading room, so best to arrive at opening time. If you need to plug in your laptop, not all seats are within easy reach of a socket.
• Photocopies can be ordered, but cost 162 roubles for an A4 sheet.
• There is no stolovaia in the archive, but there are a few places to eat nearby, where can spend the hour-long lunch break.
• The staff are very helpful.
• The archive contains the files of scientific and technical research institutes in the city, for example, the N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry, that were not part of the Academy of Sciences.