Archive is located in the two buidlings. Its main location is building at Plotnikov 11. It has also a second location at Smolenskaya-Sennaya 32/34.
Preliminary description of archival fonds stored in the archive can be found on the internet site of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: http://www.mid.ru/bdomp/Nsite-sv.nsf/f52f8031a8e7330d4325696c00322313/dfc3c8c6a1ff537c4325698800401d5a!OpenDocument
Archive contains documents referring to the foreign policy of Russian Empire, Soviet state and present Russian Federation. It contains also documents produced in other European countries captured by the Soviet troops in the years 1944-1945.
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Reading Room of the Archive is opened: Monday, Thursday- 10.30 am- 5.00 pm Tuesday, Wednesday- 10.00 am- 5.00 pm Friday- 10.00 am- 3 pm Archive is closed to the public during the last working day of each month Reading Room is closed from 15 of July until 15 of August.
Today Archive holds collection based on 1873 record groups. The archive retains the records of the Ministry (till 1946 People’s Commissariate) of Foreign Affairs since 1917. A group of 30 fonds from the 1920’s and 1930’s contains the records of the secretariats of successive Commissars and their deputies, including their official diplomatic correspondence with foreign countries. The archive stores the separate records of all Soviet embassies abroad. Special collections of records relate to various international conferences, including the peace conferences at Brest-Litovsk (1918) and Genoa (1922); conferences under the aegis of the League of Nations; Conferences of Teheran (1943), Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945); the founding conference of the UN in San Francisco (1945), and others. Other fonds include personal papers of Soviet diplomatic officials. There is a special collection of treaties, agreements, and other documents concluded with foreign countries, as well as a separate collection of photographs. Archive contains also documents captured by the Soviet troops in Germany and in other occupied countries in the years 1944-1945.
Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation was established in the November 1917, as the Archive of the People's Commissariate of Foreign Affairs on the basis of liquidated Archive of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Empire. In 1918 archive moved to Moscow with the transfer of the Soviet capital from Petersburg. From 1920 Archive was collecting all the documents produced by the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs (till 1946 People's Commissariate of Foreign Affairs). In 1941 Archive was holding more than 500.000 archival folders, around 1/10 of them being secret documents of the Soviet foreign policy. In the same year, after the German invasion on the Soviet Union, between 18 and 28 of July most important documents of the archive were transported into the town of Melekess, in the Kuibyshev Oblast. Later on Archive was moved to Kuibyshev itself. Archive did return to Moscow partially in 1943 and fully in 1944. In 1945 Archive received documents referring to the period 1720-1917 which were before in gesture of the NKWD- Soviet Internal Security Police as well as the archival collections captured by the Soviet troops in Germany and in other occupied countries. In the year 1958 Archive was transferred into the building of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Smolensk Square. In 1977 is was moved to its current location, at Plotnikov st. 11.
Архив внешней политики Российской Федерации (АВП)