NATIONAL HISTORICAL ARCHIVES OF BELARUS IN …

1 Copyright 2002 Routes to Roots Foundation, HISTORICAL ARCHIVESOF BELARUS IN GRODNObyKarina P. BatrakovaThe NATIONAL HISTORICAL ARCHIVES of BELARUS in the city of Grodno is one of the major ARCHIVES of ARCHIVES is located in the center of the town, in a buildingthat in itself is a HISTORICAL piece of architecture built at theend of the eighteenth century. The ARCHIVES keeps documentsof regional, district and provincial authorities, economical,financial, educational, medical, philanthropic and otherinstitutions and organizations of Grodno region for the periodof early nineteenth-twentieth centuries. Some archival fonds, , family fonds, contain documents from as early as thesixteenth-eighteenth centuries.

2 Archival documents containinformation regarding the history of Grodno region in itshistorical borders and also Vileyka, Disna, Lida and Oshmyanydistricts of Vileyka region of the Russian in the archival documents reflect the opening andfunctioning of industrial enterprises, market conditions,transportation, specifics of land processing and agriculture,construction and repair of buildings and structures, purchaseand sale of land, and cultural separate set of documents contains genealogicalinformation. These documents are of great interest to peopleinterested in their ancestry and, as a result, the ARCHIVES aretrying to help as much as information is mostly contained in the fondsof local authorities, financial and tax institutions and somedocuments of religious documents contain specific information regardingthe genealogy of the Jewish population of the region.

3 You canparticularly find such information in the fonds of Jewishinstitutions, metric record books of synagogues, censusrecords, documents about the elections of rabbis and otherfiles. We have to note here that documents of synagogues andJewish institutions are not complete which sometimes is thereason for the lack of information for certain towns and same can be said regarding the fonds of religiousinstitutions of other faiths.|Old synagogue in Grodno, c. 1936 (source: Polska Akademia`Naun Instytut Sztuki)Genealogical research is one of the most importantdirections of archival work. Copyright 2002 Routes to Roots Foundation, Petrovna Batrakova is the director of the NationalHistorical ARCHIVES of BELARUS in Grodno.

4 She graduatedfrom the Moscow HISTORICAL -Archival Institute. She beganher work at the NATIONAL HISTORICAL ARCHIVES of BELARUS inGrodno in 1959 and has served as director of the archivessince 1986. During her work in the ARCHIVES , she madesignificant contributions to the development of archivalsystems and administration. In 1990, she was awardedthe title of Honored Cultural Worker of the Republic ofBelarus. She actively participates in the publishing activitiesof the ARCHIVES , both international and NATIONAL scientificconferences, gives speeches and writes articles (for themedia) on the subject of documents in the ARCHIVES .|Synagogue in Wolpa, c. 1925 (source: Polska Akademia Naun`Instytut Sztuki)`Synagogue in Wolpa, c.

5 1925 (source: Polska Akademia Naun Instytut Sztuki) NATIONAL HISTORICAL ARCHIVES of BELARUS in Grodno2 Tizengauza SquareGrodno 230023 Republic of BelarusTel: 375/0152/44-94-66, 47-28-56