ABOUT RAO

U S E   O F   I M A G E S

These archival materials are provided free of charge for online viewing and research in order to open the archives and their collections to the citizens of the world. However, as the costs of preservation, cataloguing, and digitization continually grow, it is through commercial image licensing that many of these archives remain open. (Please see The Gallery article on Image Preservation to understand the efforts involved in preserving historical images which can be lost forever.) Therefore, we ask that the images present on RAO not be downloaded and distributed without permission as this only brings the Russian archives one step closer to closing their doors due to lack of funds.

Please visit RAO's primary site at www.abamedia.com/rao/ to learn more about image licensing.

Past customers include Discovery Online, the BBC, Actuality Productions of the Hearst Media Group, Evans-McCann Washington, and WGBH Boston. RAO's parent company Abamedia is also a customer with its Russian-orientated projects such as the four-part PBS series "Red Files" and the documentary "Yanks for Stalin" which was made for The History Channel.