THE RUSSIAN STATE DOCUMENTARY FILM & PHOTO ARCHIVE AT KRASNOGORSK (RGAKFD)

F I L M   C O L L E C T I O N

The Krasnogorsk Archive's Film Collection documents the entire history of Russian filmmaking, beginning with the footage of the coronation of Tsar Nicholas  II taken by Camile Serf, a cameraman of the Lumiere Brothers in 1896 and continuing with 1,000 films shot before 1917.

The Archive holds almost all periodic newsreels from 1919 to 1985, documenting the news stories of the Soviet Union: politics, wars, disasters, trials, and the people and places of the U.S.S.R. Footage is available concerning both World Wars, the Soviet invasions in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan, the Cold War and its Cuban Missile Crisis and space race, Vietnam, and the collapse of Communism. The world of literature, art, sports, and the day-to-day life of the Soviet and Russian people are also vividly represented among the films of the Archive.

• 46,536 original negatives

• 31,683 duplicate positives

• 51,825 working positives

• 6,386 duplicate negatives

• 14,655 magnetic film soundtracks

• 26,754 optical soundtracks

An extensive collection of photos and negatives within the vaults of the Archive document events from over a century ago to the present. Many early photos were arranged in large albums according to subject. Among these are 300 personal albums of the Tsars. Although mostly documentary in nature, the Archive does hold work by many famous Russian still photographers.

Early photographs include the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-78, the Russian-Japanese War 1904-05, views of early construction, portraits of military officers, and the personal life of the Tsar's family. Events of the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the First World War, and the Civil War of 1918-1921 are preserved through photos of street barricades, policemen arrested by citizens, meetings and demonstrations, various battles, funerals of the victims, and portraits of political and military leaders representing all sides. Over 85,000 photos document the Soviet-German front during World War II while revealing the tragedy of retreat and the bitterness of loss, the fury of attacks and the joys of victory. Soviet leaders, economic initiatives, and propaganda in the postwar USSR, are also represented in the Archive.

• 692,306 negatives

• 28,342 prints

• 10,376 photo albums