A meeting with Andrei Gonchar, Director of the Belarusian State Film, Photo, and Sound Documentation Archive, took place on December 5 at the Vitebsk Regional Library named after V.I.Lenin

On December 5, during the celebrations dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the Zheleznodorozhny District of Vitebsk, Andrei Gonchar, Director of the Belarusian State Film, Photo, and Sound Documentation Archive (BSFPA), gave a lecture at the Vitebsk Regional Library named after V.I.Lenin.

The meeting was attended by students from the Vitebsk State College of Electrical Engineering, staff of the State Archive of the Vitebsk Region, library employees and readers, and members of the BSJ. They learned about the history of the republic’s only repository of audiovisual documents.

The archive’s history began on March 29, 1941, with the establishment of the Central State Archive of Film, Photo, and Sound Documentation of the BSSR. Its main activities began after the liberation of the republic from Nazi invaders. Andrei Gonchar told the meeting participants about unique film, photo, and audio documents that provide invaluable evidence of significant events in the history of Belarus, beginning in the second half of the 19th century.

Andrei Nikolaevich emphasized that the archive contains over 500 films about Vitebsk. Fragments of some of these were shown to the meeting guests, including a fragment from a film made in the 1970s about pre-war Vitebsk. Footage was shown of the November 7, 1918, celebration of the first anniversary of the October Revolution, with Marc Chagall creating the decorations for the event. Then, footage of Vitebsk in the 1930s was shown. The newsreel footage documented the early days of such renowned Vitebsk enterprises as the Znamya Industrializatsii factory, the KIM hosiery and knitwear factory, the Dvina flax spinning mill, and the USSR’s only eyeglass factory, which, before the Great Patriotic War, was unparalleled in the Soviet Union for the production of eyeglasses and optical instruments. Participants also witnessed the development of Vitebsk’s historic Markovshchina district, including the construction of new residential buildings, a school, and a bathhouse.

To provide a more detailed overview of the archive’s documents, a YouTube channel has been created where staff members discuss the collections, post newsreels, and show videos. Joint projects with the Belarusian Television and Radio Company (Belteleradiocompany) play a prominent role, broadcasting selections from the newsreel that reflect current events, commemorative dates, and relevant topics.

Andrei Gonchar encouraged all meeting participants to strive to ensure that their personal and professional achievements and successes are recorded in various information formats and become part of the film, photo, and sound archive, as evidence of the historical and cultural development of Belarusian society.

1. Event poster – meeting with Andrei Gonchar, Director of the Belarusian State Film, Photo, and Sound Archive, at the Vitebsk Regional Library named after V.I.Lenin.

2. Yulia Vaylunova-Shinkevich, Head of the Marketing and Sociocultural Activities Department of the Vitebsk Regional Library named after V.I.Lenin, opens the meeting.

3-4. Andrei Gonchar, Director of the Belarusian State Film, Photo, and Sound Archive, presents the history and current work of the BGAKFFD.

5. Andrey Gonchar, Director of the Belarusian State Archives of the Faculty of Philosophy and the History of the Russian Federation, Tatyana Adamyan, Director of the Vitebsk Regional Library named after V.I.Lenin, Tatyana Buevich, Deputy Director of the State Archives of the Vitebsk Region, with representatives of the Vitebsk State College of Electrical Engineering – participants of the meeting