Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Mr Artizov, on June 22 we will soon observe one of the most tragic dates in our history – the 70^th anniversary of the Nazi invasion and the onset of the Great Patriotic War. Your agency is doing much to systematise and digitise historical documents. Let’s talk about this and about your agency’s work in general, about its targets and ways of achieving them. Please, go ahead.

Andrei Artizov: Mr Putin, it goes without saying that June 22 is a special date in our history. We’ll hold major exhibitions in the building of the State Duma and Manege. Our goal – and I know that you and our other political leaders have approved it – is to create an archive of the Great Patriotic War by the 70^th anniversary of the Victory. Since most war-related documents are kept in our archives or at the Defence Ministry, we’d like to create an integrated archive by the 70^th anniversary of the Victory – that is, in four years’ time – that will allow Russian and foreign users to access wartime documents.

Our country is unique. Since we were the primary victors in this war, we have Red Army and government materials and a very large amount of captured enemy documents that now belong to the Russian Federation by law and will not be returned to their creators. I’m referring to the documents of the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany, and the Nazi Party. We have a unique opportunity to gather all of these materials, both from our side and the enemy’s, in one place. Needless to say, the same archive should encompass all digital resources that are being created today and will be replenished in the next four years. For instance, we have a database called Memorial with the names of all our soldiers killed in action in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. We also have other war-related documents.

I think that digital images will make a great contribution to the study of the war’s history. Open access to the unbiased display of these documents is the best way of exposing all the delusions and fraud of the time.

Today, I’ve brought along two wartime publications that we are preparing. I’d like you to have them in your library. The first is War through the Camera Lens, a collection of wartime photography. The publication is unique because it features depictions of the same events by both Soviet photo correspondents and our enemies. The latter photographs, which were recovered during the war, are stored in our archives. The second publication is similar: War in Russia: a Photographic History. It contains brief descriptions of war events and unique photos. No one else has them.

Vladimir Putin: Since 1880?

Andrei Artizov: Yes, starting from the time when the first photos emerged. There was no photography before that time. And this publication contains Russia’s entire military history in photos and with annotations.

Vladimir Putin: Very interesting. Thank you very much.

Andrei Artizov: As for general issues related to our agency’s work, I’d like to report to you, Mr Putin, that the country’s archive service has not wasted the last 20 years. In these years, it took a big step forward. In the 1990s, our advancement was primarily facilitated by the advent of democracy, which opened the doors of the archives. There is no comparison between what we have now and what existed before. When in the Soviet times the former head of the archive agency was asked how accessible the archives were, he used to say “The archive is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.”, trying to evade the answer. Now everything is different. Sometimes we are criticised for the lack of access to certain materials, but we have travelled a long road in this respect, and the progress is tremendous.

Our agency’s public archives at the federal, regional, and municipal levels contain 98% open documents and a mere 2% of classified papers. The same is not the case with departmental archives – those of the Foreign Ministry, security services, and the Defence Ministry. These require declassification.

Much was done in the 1990s, and we have kept these documents. In this century, we have done much in the material and technical sphere. We have completely replaced material-technical basis for the archives in St Petersburg.

Vladimir Putin: That is a lot of work.

Andrei Artizov: I’m grateful for your help with the former archives of the Russian Empire that were kept in the Senate and Synod. Today, the buildings are in the same condition or even better than when you cut the ribbon. We are using modern methods of service, such as outsourcing. We found some shortcomings that were made during the construction and removed them. 

Vladimir Putin: How many storage units are kept there?

Andrei Artizov: Almost seven million files.

Vladimir Putin: This is one of the world’s largest archives.

Andrei Artizov: Indeed, it is. The Great Patriotic War archive will contain 11 million items, but it will be less expensive because we are going to use different technology for its formation. And it will be based on the federal land in suburban Podolsk rather than in Moscow. We have already discussed this with the minister of defence, and he promised to allocate about nine hectares for this project. It is easier for us to put everything there, and it will also be cheaper.

We have built modern premises for the Naval Archive (in fact, we completed what was started in Soviet times). It is now housed in two buildings, and both are quite decent. One is located near the Hermitage, right in front of the atlantes that shoulder its porch, and the other is in the area of Serebristy Boulevard in St Petersburg. We have built everything, opened the archive to visitors and have given users access to everything. We vacated poor premises and left them to the Leningrad Military District (in the General Headquarters building) and transferred all the documents on the history of our fleet starting from Peter the Great to this building on Serebristy Boulevard.

Last year, we built a scientific and technical archive in Moscow. In time, we would like to create an electronic centre on its basis. This is the demand of the times, and we must be ready to accept electronic documents from the administration, the government, and other federal authorities. This year, we are completing the construction of a large economy archive in Voronovo, near Moscow.  We hope to collect all the documents from former Soviet ministries there (and put a period on Soviet history). We have collected documents on the military-industrial complex, but have not yet done this in other spheres for lack of space and opportunity. We’ll commission this archive later this year.

Vladimir Putin: What about the funding? Is everything running smoothly? Are things okay, or do you have problems?

Andrei Artizov: Well, when it comes to funding… we always lack money. We are modest and try to spend everything to the kopeck. Here are the rough figures: in 2009, we had 1.3 billion roubles, a little less in 2010, and this year we’ll have 1.5 billion roubles at the federal level alone. As for the regional archives, which are subordinate to us only as regards methodological and legal issues but depend on the governors for funding, they receive about four times more.

Vladimir Putin: They have around 6 billion roubles, don’t they?

Andrei Artizov: Yes, around 6 billion roubles if we count consolidated budget expenditures on Russia’s archives.