Slavic Archives  Tags: archives literature slavic russian  

If you are interested in finding out what the working conditions are like in an archive the best thing you can do is talk with someone who has worked there recently.  One such site is available at: http://www.archivesmadeeasy.org/Default.htm  This site is sponsored by the London School of Economics website with very practical information on archive use for archives all over the world.  Individuals file reports on working conditions, transportation, technology and many other topics.

There are a couple of websites that supply this information. For example, there is a great deal of very valuable information for preparing for you trip, at the following site http://www.iisg.nl/~abb/index.php :

ArcheoBiblioBase and the Russian archival website http://www.rusarchives.ru both have information on the process as does the excellent site of the School of Russian and Asian Studies.  The latter provided a sample letter for requesting access to the archives.

This same site has a section of information entitled "Field Notes" describing working conditions and preparations http://www.sras.org/library_russian_archives#Field .  This is very useful with a couple of caveats.  In most cases they advise looking at the archival guides in Russia.  This is exactly the opposite advice we would give here.   A large number of the guides can be viewed here and should be carefully examined before you ever leave the countrly.  Also pay close attention to the dates on the reports here.  Most that I saw in November, 2008 were posted in 2007.

Now how do I read this??

If you have not worked with archival materials you might want to come prepared.   Olga Glagoleva has published a book that can help you with handwriting and it can be a real problem.  Take a look at the samples she provides at http://pages.interlog.com/~moslon/olga/samples.htm