The National Archive of Latvia has opened access to part of the KGB card files.
One can find the PDF files on kgb.arhivi.lv. The documents were scanned; most of the card files are in the Russian language, the texts are partly in writing.
Over 10,000 card files of KGB agents in the Latvian SSR are sorted in alphabetical order. They include the names of agents who were actively engaged in the late 80s as well as those excluded. Moreover, the 1st department of the KGB (intelligence) added to the catalogue information about persons who were planning to leave abroad and the names of potential candidates for recruitment in case of war or other extraordinary situation.
There is also the card index of the KGB statistical agency (4,141 cards). It includes the same names as the alphabetical card files, but they are grouped by the structural units of the KGB. In the Soviet times, the archive was often used for reporting.
Moreover, Latvia unclassified the names of the so-called KGB freelance operational workers, i.e. people who volunteered to assist security officers in ‘counter-intelligence activities at transport and industrial facilities as well as individual institutions of the Ministry of Defense’. This archive contains 75 cards. Freelance operatives did not have call signs, only an acronym of the first letters of the name, surname and patronymic.
The dispute over the opening of the KGB archives in Latvia has been on for decades. However, its most valuable part might have been taken to Moscow in the early 1990s.
ІІ, belsat.eu, following delfi.lv
