Rustam Minnikhanov visits the Russian State Historical Archive in St Petersburg

On June 1, during his working visit to St Petersburg, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov attended the Russian State Historical Archive.

The Russian State Historical Archive is one of the world's largest archives, which preserves more than 6.5 million documents on the history of the Russian Empire. The total volume of its archival funds exceeds seven million items. The huge collection includes personal funds of prominent state and public Russian figures, rare manuscripts and printed publications. Among the unique documents that have survived to the present day, one can find a draft of the Russian alphabet with comments of Peter the Great and the 1861 Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom.

Director of the Russian State Historical Archive Sergey Chernyavsky briefly told Minnikhanov about the history of the archive, its collection, work carried out to ensure the preservation of documents and scientific activities of the Archive.

Minnikhanov and members of Tatarstan delegation visited document digital capture rooms, a reading room and an exhibition hall. In particular, Tatarstan President looked around the exhibition “Gold for a rouble” dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the S. Y. Witte money reform.

In one of the archives, Tatarstan President was shown documents on the history of the Kazan province and Tatar people. According to representatives of the Archive, materials reflecting information on state-Islamic relations, documents on the history of Tatar printed publications, cases on the Kazan academic district, documents on the work of people's deputies of the Kazan province, as well as people's deputies of the Muslim faction of the State Duma, the majority of which were Tatars, are of great value.

Minnikhanov thanked Chernyavsky for the opportunity to visit one of Russia's oldest archival organizations and appreciated the institution's activities. "You are carrying out very important work, ensuring the preservation of priceless documents on the history of the Russian state. Tatarstan is interested in developing cooperation with the Russian State Historical Archive. I am sure that we will be able to establish close cooperation between our archive specialists,” he added.