Государственный архив Тверской области

History of Tver Oblast Archives begins in 1884 when the Tver Scientific Archival Commission was established. It collected gubernial administration and private documents from the region and documents referring to the history of the Tver region deposed in the archives and in the holdings of the private people in the other provinces of the Russian state.

In 1917 Gubernial Historical archive had already 50 000 archival items. Two years later, in 1919 Tver Gubernial Archival Fond was established. Its task was to collect all the documents from the region, created and collected by various institutions of the pre-revolutionary state active in the Tver region. Due to the lack of appropriate building these documents were deposed in various places of the city of Tver.

In 1925 Tver Gubernial Archival Fond was divided into two separate archives: Historical Archive (documents from pre-Revolutionary period) and Archive of the October Revolution. 1931 city of Tver was renamed Kalinin, and paralel change of name of the regional archival fonds took place.

1 June 1941 Historical and October Revolution Archives were united into State Archive of the Kalinin Oblast.

At the beginning of the World War II at the territory of the Soviet Union, 22 June 1941, archival fonds were deposed in four different localities in Kalinin (Tver). Authorities prepared evacuation plan of the archival fonds, that included 900 000 items from pre-revolutionary and 300 000 from the October Revolution and secret documents from the Soviet State period. Between 11 July and 12 October 1941 these documents were evacuated to the city of Chkalov (today Orenburg). They returned to Kalinin (Tver) in the years 1944-1945.

First post-war years were times of new organization and cataloguing of the archival fond. In 1959 the archive obtained the new building, and until 1960 most of its documents were transferred there.

In 1994 the archive was reorganized into two separate institutions: State Archive of Tver Oblast and Tver Contemporary History Documentation Center.

Archive holds collection of the documents from the Tver region from XIV century until the present day.

Archive is operating on the basis of Federal Law from 22 of October 2004, N 125-ФЗ - "On Archival work in the Russian Federation" and Law of the Tver Oblast from 23 of December 2005, N 162-ЗО - "On Archival work in the Tver oblast".

Both of these documents as well as the statute of the archive are available online:

http://www.tverarchive.ru/docs/

Archive is divided into 4 departments:

• Collecting, Securing and State Registration of the Russian Federation Archival Fond documents

• Information and Reference Systems.

• Information, Publication and Scientific Usage of the Documents.

• Technical Maintenance

The oldest documents in the archives are coming from chancery of the Tver prince (kniaz) from the XIV and XV century.

As for 1 January 2012 fonds of State Archive of the Tver Oblast hold 1600 record groups documenting history of the Tver region from XIV century until 2008. 900 000 archival items refer to the history of the Tver region from the pre-Revolutionary period.

Государственный архив Тверской области. Путеводитель. Часть 1. 1998 [State Archive of the Tver Oblast. Archival Guide. Part 1. 1998]

Государственный архив Тверской области. Путеводитель. Часть 2. 2006 [State Archive of the Tver Oblast. Archival Guide. Part 2. 2006]

Личные фонды и коллекции Государственного архива Тверской области. Справочник. 2007 [Personal fonds and collections in the State Archive of the Tver Oblast. Handbook. 2007]