Държавен архив - Смолян

The Smolyan State Archive was created in 1963 and subordinated to the People’s County Council of Smolyan and, in 1988, it was incorporated within the structure of the Municipality of Smolyan. In 1992, it passed under the direct governance of the General Department of Archives at the Council of Ministers. In 1978, it received the status of a directorate, but in 2010 it was reformed a became a division within he Regional State Archives of Plovdiv Directorate.

The Smolyan State Archive is a division within the Regional State Archives of Plovdiv Directorate. It manages the selection, acquisition, registration, processing, preservation and provision for use of the documents identified for permanent storage, which come from the district administration, the municipalities of the Smolyan region, the territorial structures of the state bodies and other state and municipal institutions, organisations and important figures of local significance. It is also responsible for scientific and methodological guidance and control of the organisation, preservation and use of documents in the archival services.

The past directors of the archive are: Andrey Pechilkov (1963–1966;1980–1997), Branko Davidov (1966–1975), Maria Bogdanova (1975–1980), Dimiter Sevov (1997–2009).

The archive has a reading room, a library, a restoration lab and an exhibition hall.

After the administrative and territorial changes in 1959, 54 fonds and 14 partial accessions were transferred from the State Archives of Plovdiv and Haskovo. In 1993, the fonds and collections of the former County Committee of BCP containing 678 fonds and 171.43 linear metres with 12973 archival units, 693 memoirs and 615 partial accessions, 3,525 photos and 558 albums were transferred to the Archive.

As of the 1st January 2011, the archival material held by the archives equated to 1680.94 linear metres divided into 2,686 fonds (public 2,421 and private 265) with 182,406 archival units; 1,513 partial accessions and 1,181 memoirs. The Security fonds consists of 430 rolls with 649,611 frames of negatives.