5 July 1938 — the Vitebsk Regional Archives Department of the Vitebsk Regional Council of People’s Deputies was formed

5 July 1938 — a special day for the archive business in the Vitebsk Region: that was the day when the Vitebsk Regional Archives Department was formed at the Executive Committee of the Vitebsk Regional Council of People’s Deputies.

Its initial functions were to determine the categories of records not subject for preservation; to monitor the rules for their destruction; to organize the use of documents and scientific-methodological work in the archive field.

In 1940, an expert-auditing commission was established at the archives department.

At the final stage of the Great Patriotic War, it resumed its work in January 1944; at first in the Smolensk region, and from June of 1944 in Vitebsk.

On December 1, 2006, the archives department was attached to the Justice Department of the Vitebsk Region Executive Committee.