STATE ARCHIVE OF KHERSON OBLAST
ESTABLISHED ON THE 2ND OF APRIL 1921

The settlement history of the southern Ukraine is mainly depicted in the archival documents of the Kherson gubernia drafting workshop and the Kherson Governmental Chamber and namely: the decrees, the pioneers’ land border registries allotted to the former Zaporozhye and Black Sea kozaks, knyaz (prince) Potemkin, being the founder of Kherson, General-Zeichmeister Gannibal being the first builder of Kherson, General Bagration being the hero of the 1912 war, knyaz (prince)Kochubey, being a statesman.
The documents show the foundation of the Bulgarian, Greek, Jewish, Moldavian, German and Sweden settlements, the colony of Mennonites and Dukhoboriv; the files comprise the auditor’s registries of farmers, craftsmen, bourgeois, free seamen, merchants, the autographs of the Governor-Generals of the Novorussia Region Duke Rishelje, count Lanzheron and Vice-Admiral de Ribas.
A unique collection of maps and layouts contains approximately 2500 entities, including the maps of Bobrinets, Yelisavetgrad, Nikopol, Odesa, Oleksandria, Kherson and the Crimean peninsula.
The archive stocks of religious establishments are most requested nowadays and in particular the archives of vital records of the Orthodox churches, Roman-Catholic churches, Evangelical-Lutheran churches, Jewish synagogues of the end of the XVIII- Beginning of the XX century.
Not so numerous, but interesting archival fonds about the period of the Ukrainian revolution of the 1917-1921 keeps the materials concerning an extremely tough political confrontation in Kherson province.
The substantial and descriptive documents had been kept at the archive fonds of the Party and Soviet authorities and namely the documents recorded the development of the national economy, construction of the Kakhovka irrigation system, the Kherson cotton plant, the biggest one in Europe, the biggest factories of the region, i.e. the Shipyard, the Combine Building Plant, the Sea and the River ports. The agricultural section of the archive is represented by the documents, which describe the Kherson region as an agricultural area (grain-crops, vegetable-growing, cotton-growing, growing of grapes) and cattle-breeding (sheep breeding and swine-breeding).
Declaration of Ukraine` independence in 1991 gave the possibility to unite the fonds of the State Regional Archive and the former party archive of the Kherson Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. The materials declassified and free for the customers describe the famine, nationalization of private farms in Kherson province, political repressions and filtration lawsuits of the deportees to Germany.
The collections of documents of a peculiar origin include the archive of the poets, writers, artists and scientists, regional ethnographers and public men, the family archives of the prominent Kherson residents, such as the Falz-Fein, Fortus, Franzholy families.
Nowadays 8 archives storages of the state archive keep more than 3 thousand archival fonds total amounting to about 800 thousand files on paper basis, starting from the 18th century to present time; about 30 thousand photo documents, more than 1,3 thousand videotape, phonotape and film recordings.
The archival database is replenished with the documents of the archival sectors of 3 City councils and 18 district state administrations. The acquisition sources are the prominent enterprises, establishments, organizations. Among the recent entries are the information-carrying mediums including database about the local affiliates of political parties, civil organizations and events that took place in Kherson Region during of Ukraine` independence.
The archive registrars issue the certificates of social and legal character, the subject requests, hold the exhibitions of the archival documents, open house days, school lessons and TV and radio programs. The facilities of two reading-rooms comprise all scientific and information auxiliary means: library, catalogues, card indexes, electronic fond catalogues and Internet.
The publications of the archive are as follows: the collections and digests, special anthology “Constanty”, the serial digest “Archive’s library”, an annotated case list “Germans of the Kherson province”, under the program “Archival collections of Ukraine” a guidebook “State Archive of the Kherson Oblast” and inventory of fond “The collection of maps and layouts”.

Address: 73000, Kherson, Radyanska St., 3
Phone/fax: 8 (0552) 22 58 95 - Reception
Phone/fax: 8 (0552) 22 56 71 - Management and archival coordination department Phone: 8 (0552) 26 69 66 - Information service
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Working days: Monday 8:00 to 17:00, Friday 8:00 to 16:00