Государственный архив Российской Федерации (ГАРФ)

Sate Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) was established on 28 April 1992, by unification of the Central State Archive of the October Revolution and Central State Archive of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic. Documents of the soviet period started to be collected from 1920, by the newly established State Archive of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic. In 1925, the archive was reorganized into a new institution: Archive of the October Revolution (from 1931: Central Archive of the October Revolution, from 1938: Central State Archive of the October Revolution, and from 1941: Central Archive of the October Revolution and of Building of Socialism). The Archive was active, although under different names, during the whole of the Soviet period. In 1957, the Central State Archive of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic was established. Both archives were united into the newly founded GARF in 1992.  

The Archive contains documents of the higher state institutions from the Soviet period, as well as collections of the documents created by major institutions in the tsarist times (the oldest documents date from XVII century, but the bulk of them is from the XIX and beginning of the XX century), as well as the documents of major Russian political movements who were active directly before the October Revolution. It also contains restitution- and/or compensation-related materials: the State Archive holds files of Russia's Forced Labor Fund (German Foundation, EVZ); it is currently a closed program: files will not be available for use until the processing activities have been completed there.  

The Archive contains major documents from the history of the tsarist Russia and Soviet Union.  

In order to work in the Reading Room of the Archive, researchers are expected to send information about themselves and their goals of their research in advance. While coming to the archive, researchers need to be in possession of documents confirming their identity.