A regular joint meeting of the boards of the Department of Archives and Records Management of the Republic of Belarus and the Federal Archival Agency of the Russian Federation took place in Moscow

A regular joint meeting of the boards of the Department of Archives and Records Management under the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus (Department) and the Federal Archival Agency of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation (Rosarkhiv) took place on 19 November 2008 in Moscow.

The sides exchanged experience in declassifying records of the Communist Party and Komsomol institutions conducted in the years 1991 – 2008.

It was noted that the archival services of these countries, guided by the national legislation for the protection of state secrets and the archival business, work much in declassifying records created by the Communist Party and Komsomol organisations, which are held in the state archives. In the Russian Federation the interagency expert commissions for declassifying records of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) function in this field with the participation of the archivists. Since 2001, a considerable part of work in declassifying records of the higher and central bodies of the CPSU has been done by the Interagency Commission for Safeguarding State Secret. In the Republic of Belarus, the activity on declassifying records of the former party archives has been carried out by the commissions of seven state archives.

For the past period these countries have declassified considerable amounts of archival records. The Rosarkhiv regularly publishes the bulletins of declassified records from the state archives. In Belarus, 2, 7 million files of the former party archives have been declassified, with 1,4 million files (51% of the total) added to restricted access…