Ukraine's Central State Archive-Museum of Literature and Arts

Address: 01025, Kyiv, vul. Volodymyrs'ka, 22a

The archive is located within the grounds of the St Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv and so is impossible to miss. Go to the Cathedral gates and, bypassing the tourists, tell the guard at the turnstile that you are visiting the archive and he will let you through without paying the entrance fee. Nearest metro station to St Sophia's is 'Zoloti vorota', although it is also only a short walk from 'Maidan Nezalezhnosti'.

Metro: Zoloti vorota
Email: slv1@mail.univ.kiev.ua
Phone: (044) 278-44-81 Fax: (044) 278-44-81
Archive Director: Leonid Viktorovych Skripka
Chief archivist: Olena Zinoviivna Rachkovs'ka

Opening Hours: Monday to Thursday: 0900 - 1800
Friday: 0900 - 1645
The last working day of the month is a sanitarnyi den', but expect others!

You don't actually get a propusk for this archive. On your initial visit, ask the guard who sits in the entrance hall to the archive to take you to the director's office. Here you will give the director (or probably his assistant) your letter from your university and explain that you want to use the reading room. From there, you will be taken to the reading room to begin your research. Every visit thereafter, you will just give your name to the guard at the door and tell him that you are visiting the reading room, and he will note this in a book.

Fill out a form and hand it to the archivist. The average wait is 2 working days and the maximum order is 10 items

The archive is fairly quiet. The lighting is poor. Not all the desks have access to a socket, so if you are using a laptop/netbook make sure to choose the right desk. You might have to sacrifice light (i.e. a desk near a window) for electricity. The archivist's assistant tends to sit at the back of the room, making sure everyone is behaving properly (i.e. he is very bored). It is incredibly cold in the reading room, but if you are visiting during the summer, this might not be a bad thing. You can take photographs of the documents, if you agree this beforehand with the archivist. She will probably give you a price of about 40UAH (approx.. £3.50) for one file, but she is open to negotiation and is quite kindly disposed towards students. If you are going to be working there for a long time, you might just agree a flat rate. There are microfilm readers in the reading room. 

The toilets aren't particularly nice - bring your own loo roll and (bizarrely) your own hand soap (seriously, they all take their own to the toilet and no one wants to share). The downside to working in such a beautiful location is that you have to leave the premises to get something more than a bottle of coke/packet of crisps (from the stall near the entrance to the Cathedral grounds). However, if you bring your lunch with you, there is no more tranquil place to sit and have your lunch break than in the beautifully-maintained grounds - that is, if you are visiting during the summer (recommended). If you were unable to sit outside, you'd have to have your lunch standing up in the corridor outside the reading room. Alternatively, you could befriend the guards (they are very friendly), who have a cosy sitting room.