State Historical Archives of Russia (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv) (Russia)
RGIA reopened in the fall 2008 to researchers in an impressive state-of-the-art building on the outskirts St. Petersburg (Zanevskii prosp., 36), specially constructed for the archive. Its historic holdings of major records of high-level and central state and administrative institutions and agencies of the Russian Empire from the nineteenth century to 1917 were transferred from their earlier home in the historic buildings of the prerevolutionary Governing Senate, Holy Synod, and State Council on the Neva Embankment and Senate square (Senatskaia ploshchad'), where most of the massive central records of the Russian Empire were consolidated after 1917 (except the records of the Army, Navy, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Further consolidation bought additional fonds of prerevolutionary social organizations and other institutions, along with personal papers of many prominent individuals with a total of 7.2 million archival files. The archive received its present name in June 1992; earlier known as the Central State Historical Archive (TsGIA SSSR), from 1941(1944)–1961 it was named TsGIA in Leningrad (TsGIAL). In late 2002 a presidential decree turned the historic buildings over to municipal authorities, and construction of the new building for RGIA began.
