Telephone directories are used by genealogists and historians to identify people and businesses from a particular place and era. This guide lists the directories from the countries of the Caucasus in the Library of Congress collections.
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Author:
Angela Cannon, Reference Specialist, European Division
Note: This guide is adapted from an earlier version, which first appeared on the European Reading Room website in 2004.
Created: January 12, 2020
Last Updated: January 21, 2020
Introduction
Most of the foreign telephone directories held by the Library of Congress are uncataloged. We have therefore compiled this list of Russian-language directories from the countries of the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) as a finding aid for our staff and researchers. These directories cover the Caucasus between the years 1935-2005. In addition to the uncataloged directories listed in this guide, the Library also holds a handful that are cataloged and may be requested using the online catalog. To locate these directories, search the Library of Congress Online Catalog using subject keywords such as "Armenia" and "directories," or the name of a city plus "directories." Besides telephone directories, this kind of search also yields business/address directories from the Caucasus. Additionally, the Library of Congress may hold directories in the languages of Armenian, Azeri, or Georgian in the African and Middle Eastern Division.
The finding aid, which represents Library of Congress holdings as of January 2020, is arranged by country/republic, then by city, and then by the year prominently displayed on the cover of the piece, which may or may not be the actual date of publication (i.e., a directory will often have one year in large print on the cover, and a different, usually earlier, year of publication elsewhere). Directories that cover all of a particular country appear first in the list. The type of directory is indicated by the words "residential," "organizational," or "both" for directories that include both business and private numbers.
Most of the directories are in Russian, but several have parallel Russian/English titles and entries. The geographic names used in this list for all three countries reflect post-Soviet era changes away from the former Soviet and/or Russian names. Increasingly, directories from these three countries are ceasing to appear in Russian, and, if published at all, are in one of the major languages of the countries -- Armenian, Azeri, or Georgian.
Besides using printed telephone directories, a reader may find it helpful to use online directories available for free on the Internet. The Russian telephone portal site Spravka.net External provides a database of business entries Armenia and Georgia. Searching of these web sites generally will require the use of Cyrillic characters as well as some knowledge of the Russian language. There are no listings for private individuals at this site.