Saving WWII Family History Now Starts at a Local Service Center
Moscow residents can bring photos and personal records about relatives who fought on the front or worked on the home front during World War II to any public service center. Staff will scan the materials on the spot and return the originals immediately.
In Moscow, the “Litsa Pobedy” (Faces of Victory) project has been integrated into the “Moi Dokumenty” (My Documents) public service centers. It creates a straightforward, citywide pathway for anyone who wants to contribute family archives to the Victory Museum without navigating formal archive submissions. Visitors simply bring photographs, letters, written accounts, or biographical details about relatives, and staff help digitize them.
After scanning, originals are returned right away. The digital copies are added to the multimedia public archive “Litsa Pobedy” at the Victory Museum on Poklonnaya Hill. In effect, personal histories move from private collections into a shared archive, where they can be preserved for future generations.
What Litsa Pobedy Is
The “Litsa Pobedy” project was launched by the Victory Museum in 2019 as a large-scale repository for photographs and personal stories of people who contributed to the Soviet victory in World War II. According to the museum, the archive is designed to store more than 150 million biographical records.
Today, the archive already includes more than 800,000 family stories. They include soldiers, home-front workers, medical staff, partisans, factory employees, and civilians whose lives were shaped by the war. The museum’s exhibition is designed so visitors can find a relative’s portrait and learn their story.
Why Service Centers Matter
For many families, participation has now become easier. Millions of citizens visit public service centers every year to access public services. There is no longer a need to locate a specialized archive or navigate submission procedures. This matters especially for older residents and for families who keep historical photos and letters at home but do not know how to transfer them to museum collections.
Since 2021, the project has been supported by Moscow’s public service centers in partnership with the Main Archival Administration of the city. Over that time, they have worked with historical materials and exhibitions, and in 2025 continued updating displays under the program “Moskva – s zabotoy ob istorii” (Moscow – Caring for History). The initiative builds on an established city practice of preserving historical memory, aligned with archival and museum efforts focused on World War II.
Using the existing “Moi Dokumenty” network makes it possible to collect and digitize materials without creating new intake points. This model could extend beyond Moscow to other regions where there is demand to preserve local and family history, and records of the wartime generation.
Beyond Moscow
The “Litsa Pobedy” project operates internationally, and people can contribute regardless of where they live. Materials can also be submitted online via the Victory Museum website, turning the initiative into a shared historical platform accessible to participants across regions and countries.
Family photographs and stories that typically remain in personal albums gain a pathway into a large, public archive. For many families, this offers a way to preserve memory and connect it to a broader historical narrative.
