Working with the media
Comments, interviews, filming and lectures on genealogy, archival research and family history. We speak from real examples drawn from 340+ completed research projects — no generalities, no bureaucratic jargon.
Pavel Ovchinnikov on family lineage, archives and memory
15 years in genealogy. Specializes in the clergy, the nobility, military research and the Civil War. Explains complex archival stories in plain language: what the document is, where it came from and what it actually tells us.
Responds quickly — a comment on an urgent topic can be provided the same day. The earliest ancestor found in the center's practice: 1574, twelve generations back.
What we can speak about in depth
The comment comes from a specialist who works on the topic every day: a genealogist, the head of the research department or the center's founder.
Genealogy and family history
How ancestors are traced today, what can realistically be found going back 100–150 years, how long it takes, and why “noble roots” more often turn out to be peasant ones.
Archives in Russia and abroad
Parish registers, revision lists, collections in 19 countries — with concrete examples from practice: what survived, what burned, where to write.
Social estates: nobility, clergy, merchants
How the different social estates of the Russian Empire lived and what they left behind in documents — and how a family's everyday life is reconstructed from the paperwork.
Military research
The fates of those who served in wars: TsAMO, captured records, award citations, burial sites. What a family can find on its own.
Repressions and rehabilitation
Searching for the case files of repression victims, working with the FSB and MVD archives, relatives' right of access to a case file.
Family memory in the digital age
How to talk with children about their great-grandmothers, why a family needs a shared archive, what digitizing documents gives you, and what happens to a family's memory when the older generation passes away.
Easy ways to work with us
- Expert commentthe same day you ask
- Interviews and podcastsby phone, video call or in person
- Live broadcasts and TV filmingin a studio or at the center's office
- Lectures and talksfor festivals, museums and libraries
- Columns and joint featureswith real detail from archival case files
Get in touch directly
Press requests skip the general inbox and go straight to the expert.
Introduce yourself and name your outlet — we'll get back to you the same day on timing and format. Or email support@central-archive.ru with the subject line “Media.”
We'll call you back during business hours. If it's urgent, call 8 800 550-58-90.