The services offered by the National Historical Archives of Belarus include:

• Biographical inquiries: evidence of birth, marriage and death dates (please, download a sample for submitting a request for a bibliographical inquiry).
• Genealogical requests: conducting genealogical research  (please, download a sample of a request for genealogical research).
• A sample of an application form for working at the Reading Room to conduct genealogical research (download a sample of an application form)

• Thematic requests and inventories: conducting research on the history of a specific settlement, institution, as well as providing a confirmation of residency, education, working experience and other information; compiling lists of documents on different topics for different geographical areas and chronological periods.

• Reproduction services: providing digitised copies of records with a possibility to provide signed and sealed paper copies (please, download a sample of an application form to request digital copies of records).
• The sale of scholarly publications
• A sample of an application from the institution for working at the Reading Room on the scientific theme
• The permission for export the copies of archival documents

The Archives service fee

In accordance with the price list for the services performed by the National Historical Archives of Belarus, approved by order № 6 issued by the Director on 25.03.2020 (amanded by the order of 14.01.2021 №1), the following fees are applied from 01.04.2020:

* The final calculation is based on the actual time spent (working days). In case of the failure to find information (the absence of requested information), deposit will not be returned.

** The advance amount (deposit) and the final cost are formed based on the completeness of the search data submitted by the applicant about the requested information, documents (numbers of the collection, inventory and file, title of the document).

*** Standard digital copies of documents have a resolution of 300 dpi and provided in the JPEG format.

**** The fee of a request for providing copies of documents with the size larger than A4 page is paid according to their actual size.

***** The timeframe for the execution of a request for providing digital copies) is up to 10 working days from the date of the confirmation of payment. For urgent execution of requests it takes up to 3 working days from the date of the confirmation of payment.

The list of digitised archival items can be found here.

Payment for the archive service is made only after receiving the corresponding informational letter or the invoice with the amount of payment. You can make payment both at a banking institution and in the Internet banking system through an arbitrary payment. A sample of filling in fields paying via Internet banking can be found here.

Payment information for customers permanently residing outside the Republic of Belarus (non-residents)

What should you do before you start your search

To conduct research, the interested party (person, organisation, institution) should make a request addressed to the Director. The request should contain the following information: the name and initials of the customer, his/her citizenship and address of permanent residency, details concerning the request, guarantees for the payment. To conduct research on family history, there should be indicated the locality (with the indication, if possible, of the modern or historical administrative-territorial divisions), a list of all known persons of the family, approximate dates of their birth, death, their religion (Orthodox, Catholic, Jew, Lutheran and etc.), place of residence: a governorate (province), county (district), volost (village council) where the settlement was located, social status or occupation (nobles, peasants, merchants, burgers, etc.). Persons and organisations (intermediaries) requesting research at the request of the third parties (customers), when making a request should provide a power of attorney for conducting relevant research.