Join hundreds of media professionals who use Russian Archives Online to discover, research, and license Russian Archival footage and still images using our proprietary search tool and english-friendly service.
For many decades after the Russian Revolution, films and photos depicting Soviet life were carefully controlled. Now, while Russia is open to the world, it’s not always easy to gain quick and legal access to these audio-visual treasures.
In 1998, RAO brought together leading international experts in archival science with Russian government archivists to create a unique multi-lingual online catalogue. Now, RAO has researchers and technical resources in Russia that assist our customers get fast and accurate results.
Over the past quarter of a century of operations, RAO has survived the forces of rapid change in modern Russia to expand our partnerships. Now we are bringing access to media from a growing list of both public and private sources to the international market.
Our greatest assets are the relationships with these premier archives and organizations.
This is how our licensing and research process works.
Fill out our contact form and let us know what exactly you're interested in.
If we determine that we'll be able to help you research the materials and digitize a sample that you're interested in, we'll provide an estimate of how long it will take and how much it will cost to do the preliminary research.
If you decide you'd like to move forward, we'll send an invoice and collect payment for the initial research.
Once the research is completed, we'll send over all relevant samples and research materials collected. If further research needs to be done, we can repeat the steps above until you have enough information to decided whether or not you'd like to pursue a licensing agreement.
Once you decide you'd like to license any or all of the materials surfaced in the research phase, we'll collect another payment and execute a licensing agreement.
Once we've received final payment and executed agreement, we will prepare all the licensed materials, deliver them to you digitally, and confirm receipt.
