Secret document from the Kurdi archive. Which archival documents are still secret?

The database of declassified cases and documents from federal state archives was prepared on the initiative of the Federal Archives Agency (Rosarkhiv) with the aim of coordinating the work on declassifying archival documents, accumulating an information array, statistical recording, and informing users about the results of the work of federal archives in declassifying archival documents.

Based on the results of declassification in 1998-2010. Rosarkhiv prepared and published Bulletins of declassified documents of federal state archives (12 issues, M., 1998–2000, 2002–2011), which were printed in a limited edition. The bulletins contained reviews of declassified cases or lists of cases from federal archives, the Government Archive Russian Federation, Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Due to the interest of archives and the public, all issues of bulletins were posted on the “Archives of Russia” portal “Declassification”.

Unfortunately, the information posted in the bulletins did not allow us to fully coordinate the work on declassifying archival files and documents stored in the federal state archives, state and municipal archives of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Considering this circumstance, in 2012 it was decided to create a database and post it on the Internet.

The database of declassified cases and documents from federal archives was posted on the industry portal “Archives of Russia” in December 2013 and is available to a wide range of users.

The database includes titles of declassified cases and documents with search data from the funds of 8 federal archives and one branch where there are cases and documents in secret storage:

• State Archives of the Russian Federation (GA RF)
• Russian State Archive of Economics (RGEA)
• Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI)
• Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI)
• Russian State Military Archive (RGVA)
• Russian State Archive of the Navy (RGAVMF)
• Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI)
• Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation (RGANTD)
• branch of the Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation in Samara (branch of RGANTD)

The cases and documents were declassified by the Interdepartmental Commission for the Protection of State Secrets for the declassification of documents of the CPSU and the Government of the USSR, which, in accordance with Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of June 2, 2001 No. 627, was entrusted with the function of declassifying documents of the highest bodies of the RCP (b) - the All-Union Communist Party ( b) – CPSU, expert commissions of fund founders (ministries, departments, institutions and organizations).

On the opening day, the database included titles transferred to open storage in 2010-2012. cases and documents, declassified incl. for previous years. Please note: the process of declassifying cases and documents is considered completed after changes are made to the archive's records, appropriate registration of declassified cases and documents and their transfer to open storage.

In the future, it is planned to promptly replenish the database with lists of declassified cases and documents, as well as install information from bulletins of declassified documents in federal state archives.

Project prepared:

project management: A.V. Yurasov(Rosarchiv);

project coordination: O.A. Antipova(Rosarchiv);

Creation local base data: P.G. Lubin;

creation of a multi-user information system, data import: N.V. Glishchinskaya, I.V. Karavaev(RGANTD), BEFORE. Oleinik;

preparation of lists of cases and documents and testing of the database:

L.A. Rogovaya, N.I. Vladimirtsev, S.A. Panarina, S.V. Somonova(GA RF);

I.V. Sazonkina, O.S. Litsareva, Yu.A. Glazova(RGAE);

L.N. Sakharova, E.K. Smirnova, E.E. Klimova, Yu.V. Yushina, O.O. Filatova(RGVA);

E.G. Azarova, O.A. Liseenko, N.N. Pyatkina(RGAVMF);

A.O. Voitov(RGALI);

HER. Kirillova, I.N. Kiselev, A.V. Lukashin, N.V. Muravyova(RGASPI);

R.G. Utkina, M.N. Kondratyeva, L.S. Karpunina, S.N. Sitkova, N.Kh. Abdullina, O.V. Ermakova, V.S. Ipatov, T.A. Mikhailova, S.N. Rodionova, A.V. Dmitrienko, I.A. Lapkina(RGANI);

L.V. Uspenskaya, A.V. Kurakin, I.L. Makarevich(RGANTD);

N.I. Telegina, A.I. Nasyrova, S.V. Dorokhova, E.V. Zykova, O.I. Stryapkina, O.Yu. Salgova, L.Yu. Pokrovskaya, M.Yu. Churkina, L.E. Velmina(branch of RGANTD).

The Federal Archival Agency expresses gratitude to the organizers and participants of the project.

Users can send their comments, suggestions and comments on the database to: technical support portal "Archives of Russia" to the address:

In the last 3-4 years, news with the headline: “The government wants to block Tor” regularly appears in the news feed. But this idea is somewhat utopian.

The darknet can be used all over the world except North Korea, where to access a computer with the Internet you need special permission from Kim Jong-un. Even China failed to ban it. The Golden Shield automatically blocks all new Tor entry node addresses, but people who need to bypass this barrier c using VPN and proxy servers.

News about the “ban on the underground Internet” only fuels interest in it among the population. More and more Russians are joining the darknet, which is fraught with many dangers and temptations. About the consequences of wrong using Tor should know in advance.

This article will cover the main types of stores and forums on Tor that should be avoided and the possible liability for using/creating them.

Fragments of the article were removed at the request of Roskomnadzor. The material has been edited.

2. Sites with job advertisements

A huge number of advertisements for the sale of *** contain a note: “We are looking for ***. Activity, adequacy, and professionalism are required. The salary is high." For one ***, an employee receives on average 500-3000 rubles. They write on the forums that a smart worker can earn up to 80-120 thousand rubles a month with a free schedule. And this is in the provinces. In the capitals the ceiling is much higher.

But this work is far from being as simple as it seems at first glance. Making a good “***” and hiding it is a whole science and experienced people write entire textbooks. There are many non-obvious problems that are difficult for a beginner to guess about.

For example, how to protect yourself from “seagulls”? This is the name given to *** who search for and successfully find other people's *** in typical places (flower beds, holes in the asphalt, entrance canopies). Or how to disguise a Ziploc bag inside an acorn or nut so that rain and wind do not damage the product?

Criminals from Tor require not only ***, but also parcel acceptors, stencilers (making announcements on the asphalt), growers (growing plants at home), and people to withdraw illegally obtained money from bank cards. They rarely look for strong guys to intimidate enemies. And every profession has non-obvious subtleties that you need to learn in order to avoid getting into trouble with the law.

In the criminal sphere, there is a terrible turnover of personnel and new employees are constantly needed. A truly adequate and neat person can work for a couple of years, but a simple ***/carrier/dropper walks free for only a few months. Most people are caught by the police sooner or later. People rarely manage to raise money, stop and leave on time.

Possible problems: According to Article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, if a person is involved in the distribution or production of ***, then he can be imprisoned for a period of 8 years. We’ll talk about penalties for parcel receivers and money cashers below.

3. Stores of goods for committing crimes

Tor is used to trade weapons, fake documents, fake SIM cards, phones, ATM skimmers and a bunch of other interesting items. As with ***, Bitcoin is used for anonymous payment. Surprisingly, there are no particular problems with the delivery of goods.

Sometimes it is done via regular mail. To receive and send parcels, they hire “droppers” who go to receive/send parcels and show off their faces and passport details. Also, goods are sent with the help of taxi drivers or private transport companies. Here is a quote from the RuOnion forum:

I once sent an optical sight via transport company, naturally not branded. They asked what was inside, he answered - a sniper scope, They: let’s write it down - an optical device :-)))) They don’t really care what to carry...

But sellers still take many precautions: they disassemble weapons into parts, which they distribute into several boxes, disguise them as other items, make parcels with double bottoms, etc. They have no less tricks than ***.

Possible problems: According to Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, illegal acquisition or transfer of weapons may be punishable by a prison sentence of up to four years. About fake documents it is written in Article 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, it says about a period of up to two years.

4. Pedophile forums

There are also a lot of people on the Tor network who are sexually attracted to children. There is a lot of “interesting” for them here. Firstly, huge archives of porn videos featuring minors. Secondly, these are forums where people share their personal experiences of seducing children and hiding this process from others.

Some pedophiles consider sex with children absolutely unacceptable and sit on “conservative” sections of forums, where they simply post slightly erotic photos of little girls and boys with their genitals covered.

But there are people for whom just watching videos is not enough and they strive to make their fantasies come true. The main shock for me when preparing this article was familiarization with a book for pedophiles in Russian.

200 pages about where to find a potentially available child and how to recognize him, how to gain his trust, how not to leave traces and how to make sure that the child never tells anyone about what the pervert or pervert did to him.

And judging by the forums, many pedophiles actually manage to turn things around so that parents never find out what happened to their child. After all, most often children are seduced not by maniacs on the streets, but by neighbors, relatives or family friends who have been in the house for many years.

Never leave your child alone with anyone and never without video surveillance. There are many more pedophiles among us than one might think.

Possible punishment: It is prohibited to store porn videos involving minors on your computer. You can read more about this in the article:

5. Websites of extremist organizations

Terrorists, skinheads and radical oppositionists also create websites on the onion network, publish articles there and discuss plans for pogroms or the seizure of power on forums. Also, sect sites are gradually moving to Tor.

Since 2002, Russian authorities have maintained a list Federal extremist materials. It includes almost 4,000 books, articles, paintings and musical works. Rospotrebnadzor forces the removal of such materials from sites on the clearnet, but they are distributed freely in Tor libraries.

Possible punishment: According to Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, participation in an extremist organization can lead to imprisonment for up to six years. Also, you cannot copy materials from such sites to Tor and post them on social networks and blogs. There is also a separate article on this topic:

6. “Hacker” trading platforms and forums

In international dark markets, next to *** and weapons, there is often a Digital Goods section. In it you can buy Trojans, tools for Wi-Fi hacking, tools for hacking programs, tools for DDOS attacks and many other types of “tools for illegal access to digital information.”

Along with the programs, you can also buy instructions for their use and educational books. They also sell digital goods that were stolen using the tools described above: upgraded characters in games, paid accounts for various services, hacked programs, access to infected computers.

There are also many hacker forums on the darknet. There people share their experiences with each other, look for perpetrators and accomplices for various cyber crimes.

Possible punishment: If it is proven that a person used any of the programs described above, then, according to Article 272 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, he can be imprisoned for up to two years.

7. “Black” cryptocurrency exchanges

The sites and organizations described above make financial payments in bitcoins (less often in other cryptocurrencies). And of course, they don’t pay any taxes on it. Cryptocurrencies are used to cash out illegally obtained money.

Tor has exchanges for withdrawing bitcoins to regular electronic wallets or bank cards. It is also full of advertisements of people who withdraw money from cryptocurrency wallets to offshore accounts or transfer money to the account of a “shell company.” From the latter, money can be withdrawn using ordinary “cashers”.

There you can also order bank cards issued to dummies or “virtuals”. And hire drops who will go to the ATM, show their faces in front of the cameras, withdraw cash from the cards and deliver it to you.

Possible punishment: According to Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, participation in group fraudulent schemes can entail up to 10 years in prison.

The State Duma is also talking about adopting a bill that would provide for punishment of up to four years in prison simply for using bitcoins or other cryptocurrency.

conclusions

The above describes not all types of content that can be found in Tor networks. Not mentioned are sites with erotica for animal lovers, stores of stolen goods, sites for ordering killers and much more.

But what has been described is quite enough to understand why governments around the world are trying to control the Internet. Personal freedom and privacy are good. But how to fight criminals on the Internet without blocking sites and controlling traffic?

P.S. Is Tor anonymous?

There are a lot of tutorials on how to ensure online anonymity on the darknet. Some of the authors consider it a sufficient scheme virtual machine from Tails -> vpn -> vpn -> Tor. And someone recommends buying a computer from a flea market in a neighboring area and using a modem through the “left” SIM card. But one thing is for sure - if you just launch Tor browser, then your level of anonymity is quite low.

Intelligence agencies around the world are actively working to identify criminals who use the “underground Internet.” For example, in the fall of 2016, as part of the international Operation Titan, Swedish police identified 3,000 buyers of *** on Tor. And there are more and more reports of such investigations every year.

It happens that someone travels to dubious sites, and then wants to find out whether well-behaved members of his family are doing the same.
It happens that you need to hide your “work” from a boring network administrator or boss.
Sometimes, on the contrary, you need to find out what the people to whom you are paying money for some reason are doing.
Let's play spy a little.
Why a little? Because if you, say, seriously interest special services in you, they will recognize the color and consistency of your stool even before you go, excuse me, to the toilet.
So, now you're a bit of Agent 007...

1. Browser history
In the top panel Internet Explorer and there is a spy button "magazine". How to get into it?
"View" "Browser Panels" "Journal".

When you open the Journal, you will be horrified. All the links to recently visited places on the Internet... they're all there! And more than that. At the bottom there is a “my computer” icon. And what's there? And there is a detailed list of all the files you have opened recently...
If you decide to play spy... right-click on an unnecessary folder or link in this magazine... See? A sentence appeared: “Delete”. Take action...

2.List recently open documents.
In XP, the list of recently used documents was easily accessible to you and you at least knew that it was there... It is also required in latest versions Windows, you just don't think about it!
From the Start menu, click left mouse button once on the "Properties" line. After this, a window will appear in front of you with the properties of the Taskbar and the Start menu.


In the window that opens, activate the Start Menu tab by left-clicking on it once.
Next, click on the “Customize” button, which is located opposite the line with the selected Start menu style. After this, a window with menu settings will open. In this window, activate the “Customize” tab. Find the "Recent Documents" block and check the box.
Then click the "OK" button located at the bottom of the window. And "apply"

After this, the list of recent documents will be available when you hover the cursor over the line “Recent Documents”, which is located in the “Start” menu
Important!!! There is always a list of the latest documents. You just don’t think about it... And having made these settings, you will at least know what’s hidden in this list. And you can delete everything from this list: by right-clicking on the “recent documents” item, you can see the “clear list of recent items” item

3.List of recent documents in the application.
I’ll never forget how I copied all sorts of photographs from my friend’s floppy disk. Then I just looked through them. I saw dirty porn... closed the editor... didn't immediately delete it in the trash... I just turned off the computer and went to work.
How could I know that my child draws flowers in the same editor in which I looked at the photos?
And, of course... Any editor has a list of the latest documents opened... Children are curious... they open everything... Many years have passed, but I am still ashamed...
Since then... if I come across similar materials, I delete them mercilessly and immediately.
And if you had to save something like this... how to hide it from graphic editor?
Just open a dozen normal files with the same extension in the same editor, and they will fill the list.
Or find an editor who doesn't remember anything.

4.Kukki.
In the depths of any browser there is always a mysterious Cookies folder. When you surf the Internet, it is there that the servers you visit have the right to record all sorts of registration data on your home computer. Often they write something there without your knowledge. Therefore, if you do not want to leave traces of visiting something forbidden on the Internet, then feel free to look for this data and mow down what you do not need. There will definitely be no harm, but you will get pleasure... here's where they sit:
Google Chrome
Windows XP C:\Documents and Settings\(Your_profile)\Application Data\Chromium\
Windows 7 C:\Users\(Your_profile)\AppData\Local\Chromium\User Data\Default\Cache\
Opera
Windows XP C:\Documents and Settings\(Your_profile)\Application Data\Opera\
Windows 7 C:\Users\(Your_profile)\AppData\Local\Opera\Opera\cache\
Firefox
Windows XP C:\Documents and Settings\(Your_profile)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\\
Windows 7 C:\Users\(Your_profile)\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\\
Internet Explorer
Windows XP C:\Documents and Settings\Cookies\\
Windows 7 C:\Users\(Your_profile)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies\\

Unfortunately, I don’t recommend blocking writing to this folder in your browser settings. The fact is that many serious servers will simply refuse to work with you if they do not write their settings in the Cookies folder. Let them write to themselves. All the more pleasant it will be for you to mow down the contents of this “spy center” again.

5. Temporary Internet files
Different browsers create different folders in the root file systems for storing temporary data.
Let's see who stores them where:
Internet Explorer - C:\Documents and Settings\(Your_profile)\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files - (Windows XP),
C:\Users\(Your_profile)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary internet Files - ( Windows Vista, 7)
Opera - C:\Users\(Your_profile)\AppData\Local\Opera\Opera\cache
Mozilla Firefox- C:\Users\(Your_profile)\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\\Cache
Google Chrome - C:\Users\(Your_profile)\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache\
(if some folder is not visible, make it visible by going to point 7 of this article)

6. File names.
By clicking the "Start" button, you can go to "Search for files and folders." Using the search service that opens, an advanced user can find anything on your computer. Simply by specifying the expected file name or line of text within it. In addition, there are special hacking utilities that search even deeper.
What to do? Don't store games at work in a folder with an easy-to-guess name. Store terribly secret texts in a compressed, archived form and give the files meaningless names. But...if they take you seriously, this will not help.
It is better to live calmly, openly, and not trust paper or a computer with your secrets. By the way, don’t trust people with secrets even more so.

7. Hidden and system files.
If you just want to protect important files or folders from accidental destruction?
Click on the file name with the right mouse. There is a properties panel at the bottom... go there.
And specify the "hidden" attribute. If you already have the “do not show” checkbox in your “my computer” settings hidden files and folders" then such files will no longer be visible.
How to get there and see these magical settings?
Open My Computer or File Explorer. Press Alt to return the control buttons (in XP they would have been by default, but now you have to call them with a key)
On the top panel, select “Tools” from the menus, and then “Folder Options”.
We are interested in the middle tab "View". Go almost to the very bottom... See?
This is where hidden opportunities exist to make hidden and system files accessible or invisible!

Of course, after reading all this, you yourself will figure out how to delete unnecessary correspondence from your Skype account social network, if you need to press the “exit account” button after working with your account and maybe even delete unnecessary correspondence from Email... one of my friends was looking for a hacker to view his wife’s mail - judging by the fact that they soon divorced - apparently this friend finally got access to the mail :-)

And having gone through this small training on the safe storage of information, we still remember that spying on our neighbors is not good, and the intelligence services already know everything about you and me. We live calmly and joyfully and do not create secrets around ourselves...
But what if you urgently need to clear your computer of traces of your visit and give it to someone?
If you use a computer with someone else?
Perhaps some of these tips will be useful to you...

For the “secret” classification to actually appear, the state needs compelling reasons. Most of these cases are state secrets.
But many personal archives of famous people become secret at the request of their heirs, who do not regret making their ancestors appear in an unflattering light.

The most secret documents became in 1938

A radical change in the matter of classifying information occurred in 1918, when the Main Directorate of Archives was organized under the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR. The brochure “Save the Archives” published by Bonch-Bruevich was distributed through “ROSTA Windows” to all government institutions, where, in particular, there was a provision on the secrecy of certain information.

And in 1938, management of all archival affairs passed to the NKVD of the USSR, which classified a huge amount of information, numbering tens of thousands of files, as secret. Since 1946, this department received the name of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, and since 1995 - the FSB.
Since 2016, all archives have been reassigned directly to the President of Russia.

Questions for the royal family

The so-called famous Novoromanovsky archive of the royal family has not been fully declassified, most of which was initially classified by the Bolshevik leadership, and after the 90s, some of the archival documents were made widely public. It is noteworthy that the work of the archive itself was strictly confidential. And one could guess about its activities only from indirect documents of employees: certificates, passes, payroll records, personal files of employees - this is what remains of the work of the secret Soviet archive.

But the correspondence between Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Fedorovna has not been fully disclosed. Palace materials concerning the relationship between the court and ministries and departments during the First World War are also not available.

KGB Archives

Most KGB archives are classified on the grounds that the operational investigative activities of many agents can still cause damage to counterintelligence work and reveal the methodology of its work. Some successful cases in the field of terrorism, espionage, and smuggling have also been mothballed.
This also applies to cases related to intelligence and operational work in the Gulag camps.

Stalin's affairs

1,700 files compiled in the 11th inventory of the Stalin Foundation were transferred from the archive of the President of the Russian Federation to the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, of which about 200 cases were classified as secret.

The cases of Yezhov and Beria are of considerable interest, but they were published only in parts, and complete information there are still no cases of “executed enemies of the people”.
Confirmation that many more documents remain to be declassified is the fact that in 2015, at four meetings of the Interdepartmental Expert Commission on the Declassification of Documents under the Governor of St. Petersburg, 4,420 cases for the years 1919-1991 were completely declassified.

Party archives are also “secret”

Of considerable interest to researchers are the resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars, the resolutions of the Council of Ministers, and the decisions of the Politburo.
But most of the party archives are classified.

New archives and new secrets

The main task of the archive of the President of the Russian Federation, formed in 1991, was to combine documents from former archive USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, and then the subsequent period during the reign of Boris Yeltsin.
The Presidential Archives contains about 15 million different documents, but only a third of them, five million, are in the public domain today.

Secret personal archives of Vladi, Vysotsky, Solzhenitsyn

The personal funds of Soviet leaders Nikolai Ryzhkov, Vladimir Vysotsky and Marina Vladi are closed to the general public.
Do not think that documents are classified as “secret” only with the help of government officials. For example, personal fund Alexander Solzhenitsyn, stored in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, is kept in secret storage because the heir, the writer’s wife Natalya Dmitrievna, personally decides whether or not to make the documents public. She motivated her decision by the fact that documents often contain poems by Solzhenitsyn that are not particularly good, and she would not want others to know about this.
In order to make public the materials of the investigative case in which Solzhenitsyn ended up in the Gulag, it was necessary to obtain the consent of two archives - the Ministry of Defense and the Lubyanka.

Plan for "secrets"

The head of Rosarkhiv, Andrei Artizov, said in one of his interviews: “We declassify documents in accordance with our national interests. There is a declassification plan. To make a decision on declassification, three or four experts with knowledge are needed foreign languages, historical context, legislation on state secrets.”

Special Commission on Declassification

In order to declassify materials in each archive, a special commission was created. Usually - from three people who decided on what basis to give or not give wide publicity to this or that document.
Secret materials are of unconditional interest to a wide range of people, but historians warn that working with archives is a delicate matter and requires certain knowledge. This is especially true for secret archival materials. Not many people have access to them - thousands of documents from the times of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union are classified for various compelling reasons.

In the 1990s, a number of Soviet-era documents that had previously been classified as “top secret” began to be made public, but the authorities, having come to their senses, again closed access to them. Apparently, many secrets of the USSR will remain inaccessible.

Classified as "top secret"

The classification of secrecy is imposed for two reasons. First and foremost, most of the documents stored in the archives are state secrets. The second reason is related to materials concerning famous personalities of the past, whose heirs do not want the details of their lives to be made public.

In 1918, something happened that today does not allow us to fully familiarize ourselves with the documents of the Soviet past. That year, Lenin received a message informing him how Red Army soldiers were indiscriminately destroying manuscripts and correspondence of famous writers. The leader immediately called the publicist Bonch-Bruevich with a request to write a brochure entitled “Save the Archives.” The brochure, which sold 50 thousand copies, bore fruit.

However, very soon Soviet officials realized that it was important not only to preserve the archives, but also to limit access to them for ordinary citizens due to the confidentiality of the information contained in some sources.

In 1938, the management of all archival affairs came under the jurisdiction of the NKVD of the USSR, which classified a huge amount of information, numbering tens of thousands of files. Since 1946, the powers of this department were received by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, and since 1995 - by the FSB of Russia. Since 2016, all archives have been reassigned directly to the President of Russia.

Stalin's affairs

Despite the fact that many documents from the Stalin era have long been declassified, some of them are still hidden away from prying eyes in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History. In particular, about 200 cases from the Stalin Foundation are classified as secret. Of considerable interest to researchers are the cases of Yezhov and Beria, which were published only in parts, and there is still no complete information on the cases of the executioners who became enemies of the people.

Today, many Russians are requesting investigative files of illegally repressed citizens stored in the archives of the FSB and GARF. Access to the investigative files of repressed persons is permitted by law for relatives, as well as for other interested parties. True, the latter can receive the required documents only after the expiration of 75 years from the date of the verdict. Often, visitors to archives receive defective copies, in particular, with the names of NKVD officers blacked out.

Some researchers are confident that the NKVD files will never be declassified in full. In March 2014, the interdepartmental Commission for the Protection of State Secrets extended the secrecy period for documents of the Cheka-KGB for the years 1917-1991 for the next 30 years. This decision also included a large array of documents relating to the Great Terror of 1937-1938, which were extremely in demand by historians and relatives of victims of repression.

WWII Archives

Today, the Great Period still hides many secrets. Patriotic War. For example, there is still no publicly available summary work on the operations of the Red Army during the war with maps attached. Since the publication of the collection of archival materials “1941” in 1998, new original documents have been published in very measured doses. Moreover, researchers do not even have the right to familiarize themselves with the names of cases in the secret storage inventories.

Historian Igor Ievlev notes in this regard: “Apparently, researchers have already approached a barrier, beyond which, if overcome, completely inconvenient and, probably, even shameful and disgraceful pages can open.” real story countries".

Also, modern historians cannot familiarize themselves with the original documents recording the number of conscripts and mobilized in wartime and are still forced to rely on data from preserved conscription books - a secondary source. Unfortunately, the draft cards of recruits, the registration cards of those liable for military service in the reserve and the rank and file of the Red Army were almost all destroyed.

Not long ago, on the forum of one of the sites dedicated to the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War, one of the readers shared interesting information. According to him, in one of the conversations, a former employee of the military registration and enlistment office told him a long-standing story about the complete destruction in 1953 after the death of Stalin of all service records and other primary documents for the rank and file from pre-war times until the end of the war.

What is the reason for the desire of the USSR leadership to hide data relating to mobilization on the eve of and during the Second World War? Researchers are sure: in order to hide the real losses of the USSR in the first months of the war.

KGB Archives

The KGB in the USSR, like the CIA in the USA, is an intelligence service that, during its existence, has conducted a huge number of secret operations around the world. Any state security officer will confirm that KGB business papers are rarely declassified in their original form. They are first “cleansed”, removing information that the department does not want to make public for one reason or another.

Almost all the currently known secrets of the Soviet intelligence services were published in London in 1996 thanks to a former employee of the archival department of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR Vasily Mitrokhin. Volume of the archive classified materials The KGB, which Mitrokhin handed over to Great Britain, amounted to 25 thousand pages.

The published materials contain information that could hardly be published in Russia in the foreseeable future. In particular, it was brought to public attention how, from 1959 to 1972, the KGB collected information about American power plants, dams, oil pipelines and other infrastructure in preparation for an operation that could lead to a disruption in the power supply of all of New York.

It contains information detailing the KGB's plans to secretly acquire three American banks in Northern California as part of a covert operation designed to obtain information about high-tech companies in the region. The banks were not chosen by chance, since all of them had previously provided loans to corporations of interest to the KGB. The figurehead in whose name the banks were bought was supposed to be a Singaporean businessman, but the American intelligence services managed to figure out the KGB's plans.

Even these two facts are quite enough to understand why the KGB carefully guards its secrets.

Quite personally

Many personal funds related to the lives of famous people are also closed to the general public. Much that should not be known is hidden in Stalin’s personal archive. But at least the names of these materials are known. There are, in particular, Stalin’s outgoing encrypted telegrams for the period of the 1930s, correspondence of the Secretary General with the People’s Commissariat of Defense of the USSR and the Ministry of the Armed Forces of the USSR for the 1920–1950s, letters from citizens and foreigners addressed to Stalin, documents about Molotov’s trip to London and Washington in 1942.

Besides this, we will probably never know the details of the personal lives of Marina Vladi and Vladimir Vysotsky. Former Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov will not reveal state secrets to us, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn will not tell us about his innermost thoughts. Personal archives of public persons are most often closed from public access by their heirs.

For example, the personal collection of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, stored in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, is located in closed access, because the heir - the writer’s wife Natalya Dmitrievna - decides for herself whether to make the documents public or not. She motivated her decision by the fact that documents often contain poems by Solzhenitsyn that are not particularly good, and she would not want others to know about this.

Difficulties of declassification

In 1991, the archive of the President of the Russian Federation was formed, which combined documents from the former archive of USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, and later the first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin. During the first 10 years of the foundation’s existence, many materials were declassified, but in the early 2000s this process was suspended, and documents that had already been made public were classified again.

The head of Rosarkhiv, Andrei Artizov, noted in one of his interviews: “We declassify documents in accordance with our national interests. There is a declassification plan. To make a decision on declassification, we need three or four experts with knowledge of foreign languages, historical context, and legislation on state secrets.”

What are the country's leaders afraid of when declassifying documents, many of which have already crossed the half-century mark? Researchers cite a number of reasons: Among them, for example, is the very difficult issue of cooperation between the USSR and Nazi Germany on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, reflected in numerous documents.

Other reasons include: real scale repressions of the Stalinist government against its people; destabilization of the world situation by the USSR; facts that destroy the myth about the USSR’s economic assistance to other states; wasting public funds to bribe third world governments to gain support from the UN.

In fact, all prohibited materials can be summarized into two main categories: documents that present the Soviet regime in an extremely negative light, and documents that in any way relate to the ancestors of modern politicians, which we would like to keep silent about. This is quite understandable, since both of them can seriously undermine the reputation of modern Russia - the legal successor of the USSR - in the eyes of the whole world.