The Central Archives of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (Russian: Центральный архив Министерства обороны Российской Федерации; TsAMO RF, ЦАМО РФ) is located in Podolsk, just south of the city of Moscow.
As a departmental archive of Russia, it stores documents of different staffs and offices, associations and formations, units, institutions and military academies of the Soviet Defence Ministry from 1941 until the end of the 1980s. It comes under the command of the Rear Services of the Armed Forces of Russia. It has data on the history, culture and military education of the Ministry of Defence (Russia).
Founded in 1936, the archive moved to Podolsk in Moscow Oblast around 1946.
In 1992 a branch of TsAMO was established in Pugachyov in Saratov Oblast.
As of 2010[update] Colonel Igor Albertovich Permyakov functions as Head of the archive.
TsAMO was founded on 2 July 1936 as the archives department of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the Soviet Union (NKO). In 1941, it was evacuated to the town of Buzuluk in Orenburg Oblast. The department was renamed the History and Archives Department of the NKO in 1943, and in 1944 it became the Archives Department of the Administration of the Red Army in the NKO. In 1946, the department was relocated to Podolsk, taking over the former site of a military school. On 21 July 1947, the department became the Archive of the Ministry of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union. On 25 February 1950, it became the Archive of the Military Ministry of the Soviet Union, and on 15 March 1953 the Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union.