The audio archive is a division of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History, Karelian Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences (ILLH KRC RAS). It stores field research materials gathered by the Institute specialists for decades since the 1930's. These materials include speech samples, folklore pieces, data on the culture and everyday life of the nations living in Karelia, Komi Republic, Archangel, Murmansk, Vologda, Leningrad, Tver regions, Estonia, Latvia. Special expeditions are organized to record the phenomena of the national culture which only exist in the oral form - these are first of all scriptless languages and folklore.The recordings were made in the dialects of the north-Russian dialectal group, Karelian, Vepsian, Finnish (Ingrian), Izhorian, Livvian, Saam languages. Total storage today is about 4000 hours of sound. The earliest samples are gramophone records (over 100 storage units), and the bulk of the storage is tape recordings. There is also a store of video-tape recordings made in Karelia, Archangel, Vologda regions among the north-Russian population, Vepsians and Karelians.
The archive has a considerable collection of the north-Russian folklore, and the collection of the Karelian, Vepsian and Ingrian language and folklore monuments is the largest in Russia. The regularity with which expeditions to the areas populated by these peoples were held raises the scientific value of the ILLH audio archive. The decoded materials helped researchers of the Institute carry out basic studies in linguistics, folklore, ethnography; Dictionaries of the Vepsian and Karelian languages were prepared and published, speech samples and collected folklore pieces were published. Only a very minor part of the materials has been published so far.
The audio archive is used both in research and in the work of university-level institutions, high schools, museums, professional and amateur art groups. It is of interest also for people keen on oral folklore.
The White Sea - Baltic region, where expeditions of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History were held
 | Karelians |  | Russians |  | Saams |  | Vepsians |
 | Izhorians |  | Livvians |  | Ingrian Finns | ||
