The Tracing and Information Center of the Russian Red Cross (TIC RRC) is launching a large-scale project titled “Preserving the Past for the Future”, aimed at digitizing unique archives from the Great Patriotic War and creating a publicly available digital catalog. The archives will be digitized over the course of several years.
The TIC RRC is the third largest tracing service within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, following the tracing centers of the German and Polish Red Cross National Societies. In 2025, the TIC RRC received 1,994 requests from both individuals and government institutions. Most inquiries concerned the search for missing persons, confirmation of citizens’ forced labor records and evacuation records, including those related to the Siege of Leningrad. All incoming requests are carefully reviewed. The TIC’s specialists work with archival materials, verify information, and provide official responses to individuals and institutions.
The project has now received support from the Presidential Grants Foundation, which has allocated nearly 15 million rubles for its implementation. This funding will enable a comprehensive digitization of archival materials that have been preserved exclusively in paper form for decades. These records are used to confirm evacuation histories, determine the fate of missing persons, identify the burial sites of Soviet soldiers, and preserve other records related to the Second World War.
“The TIC archives hold the living history of our country and the personal stories of millions of people. Behind every card is a family story and a hope of restoring ties between generations that may have been broken for decades. We understand that some paper documents inevitably deteriorate over time due to natural wear and tear. That is why our task today is to preserve this information by digitizing it and to make the archives accessible to people seeking answers about their loved ones,” said Pavel Savchuk, President of the Russian Red Cross.
The Tracing and Information Center of the Russian Red Cross archives contain approximately
15 million individual records. One of its most significant collections is the archive of evacuated civilians, which includes approximately 8 million record cards. It is the country’s most comprehensive repository dedicated to individuals evacuated during the Great Patriotic War. The documents confirming individuals’ evacuation during the war remain available only in paper form and are increasingly at risk of deterioration. Digitization will help preserve these materials for the future while significantly reducing the time required to process requests from citizens, including veterans and their families.
The project will be carried out in two stages. It will begin with the digitization of archival record cards and the creation of a digital catalog organized according to the same alphabetical and numerical system as the paper archive. This will be followed by the extraction and conversion of the information from the cards into searchable data.
The project “Preserving the Past for the Future” will become part of a unified historical online platform, creating broader access to archival materials for diverse groups of users, including residents of remote regions, researchers, and descendants of those evacuated or displaced during the war. It will also contribute to the development of a stronger research environment and help preserve the historical record of the Great Patriotic War for future generations.
