Contact person: Zoia Hotkina, director;
telephone: (095) 305-15-39.

In 1993 the first archives in Russia specializing in women was created. The most important goal of the archives is to produce annals about the modern women's movement in order to create a documental portrait of Russia's modern woman and to realize the important position women have maintained in Russia's history.

Our Collections The compilation of the archives is being accomplished through several projects. Project: Regional Centers of Women's Activities. The goal of this project: to show the wide spectrum of regional women's organizations, clubs, projects, and initiatives. The current number of such programs in 150 women's associations and organizations from different towns and regions in Russia, Belarus, Khazhastan, and the Ukraine. These organizations include the Moscow Center for Gender Studies, the Congress of Women's Kolski Peninsula, the Urals Association of Women, Tverskoi Feminist Club "Woman's Light", and others.

Zoia Hotkina

Project: Steps of Women's Independent Movement in Russia

Independent women's forum collected information and materials for the preparation of the First and the Second Independent Women's Forums in Dubna, Russia, in 1991 and in 1992 respectively. "Women's participation in elections for the Federal Duma. Federal Soviet, and regional offices in 1993" - in this collection there are the materials of press conferences, independent women's forums, two seminars which were conducted by Women's informational Project ADL and other Russian women's organizations. In this collection there are documents about of the political movement "Women of Russia" and materials from the periodical press. "Seminars and Conferences" - n this collection are the documents and materials from different seminars conducted for women and for participants of women's organizations.

Project: Women in the Media and Women's Press.

The archive materials focus primarily on women's press and media about women. The archives maintains two collections of such material:

1. Image of women in the media - this collection includes more than 2600 articles about women that were written in central newspapers and magazines from the period 1980 until 1998: they are classified into 28 different topics.
2. Women's Press - this collection consists of 47 newspapers and magazines which were published in Russia and CIS. "Informal press" has a special place in the collection: in addition columns from regional newspapers published by women's non-government organizations are included.

Audio archives.

The audio cassette collection contains materials from more than 20 seminars, conferences, and round table discussions which were conducted by ADL and other women's organizations.

Other collections include "Unemployment has the face of a woman", "Oral histories of Women in the elder generation", interviews with leaders of women's organizations "Women's Independent Movements and Personal Histories". Most of the audio recordings are transcribed. There are 48 individually itemized topics for 141 cassettes.

Photo archives.

Currently the photo archives has 345 photographs. The photographs record various events in the independent women's movement in Russia seminars, conferences, etc. ADL organized two photo exhibitions: "To Be a Woman in Russia" and "Who's Who in the Independent Women's Movement in Russia". These exhibitions were shown in the 4-thWorld Conference on Women in Beijing 1995.

Woman's Archives sees its mission as providing more materials and documents that

shed light on life events and activities of women of our time. The materials that have been gathered, saved, and documented have become the property of those who are interested in the women's movement of today and that of future generations.

Our principles:

1. We are open to everyone - including all women and men
2. We do not have specific collection criteria for our collections
3. Our goal is to create the portraits of our modern women and the history of the modern women's movement in Russia.

Zoia Hotkina