State Archives of Kherson Oblast

The State Archives of Kherson Oblast has over 100 years of history. As of the beginning of 2022, the archive contained 970 thousand paper-based documents, chronologically covering the period from the c. of the 18th century to the present day. In particular, these are the fonds of local public administration bodies, city, zemstvo, and state self-government, judicial bodies, boundary and forest protection institutions, transport and communication institutions, financial, tax and credit institutions, educational institutions, religious institutions, public and charitable organizations, and societies. 

Another set includes documents from before 1941:

Fonds of local state authorities and administration and their subordinate institutions.Committees of poor peasants, workers' and peasants' inspections, courts and workers' and peasants' police.Military administrative institutions, public education and health care institutions, cooperative and public organizations, and trade unions.

The State Archives holds the fonds of institutions and organizations of the period of Nazi occupation in 1941-1944, commissions to investigate crimes committed by the Nazi occupiers during World War II, and information on damages.

Among the postwar documents received by the archive, the fonds of the regional executive committee, regional departments and divisions, and executive committees of district, city, town, and village councils deserve special attention. They contain minutes of sessions, meetings of executive committees and permanent commissions. A group of documents from 1951-1955 reflects the construction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant and others.

All documents were in constant demand by scholars, researchers of Ukrainian history and regional studies. They have repeatedly become a source of scientific publications, documentaries, and journalism.

As a result of the occupation of the Kherson region by Russian troops, the archive's research infrastructure suffered from theft of funds, destruction of the archive's premises as a result of shelling, and theft of the archive's material and technical base by the occupiers. Thus, more than 400 thousand paper-based documents were stolen. The number of stolen documents is still being calculated.

The amount of damage has yet to be discovered because, due to the constant shelling and continued destruction of the premises, the examination was not ordered, and its conduct until the shelling stops is impractical.