HBS "Memorial" is a generalized databank that contains information about people who died, died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War. This information base is a tribute to the memory of those who gave their lives for the sake of peace on earth.
The generalized databank called "Memorial" was created in 2006 on the initiative of the President of the Russian Federation, recorded in Decree No. 37 of January 22, 2006 "Issues of perpetuating the memory of those killed in the defense of the Fatherland."
Preparatory work
The work on the creation of the Memorial WBS was started back in 2003, but the portal first appeared on the Internet at https://www.obd-memorial.ru in 2007. This amount of preparatory work was due to the fact that the staff working on the project had to process many different sources in order to form a single database.
They had to analyze the archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Central Military Archives, the Central Naval Archives and many other state institutions, where information about people who died, died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War was kept in a rather fragmented form. At the same time, in order for interested users to get the most reliable information about the person they need, the specialists involved in the preparation of the project not only studied the archival documents, but also made digital copies of them, which were then posted on the network.
Data bank today
At the moment, the Memorial WBS is the largest online repository of information about people who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War. As a result of extensive preparatory work, almost 14 million sheets of a wide variety of documents, as well as more than 40 thousand passports of military graves, are currently in the public domain.
A user who has applied for information to the site, even having minimal information about his deceased relative, may try to find the place of his burial or other information about him. So, the search for information using the main request form is based on information about the last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth or rank of the person of interest, however, the request can be clarified by adding data on the date and place of conscription, last place of service, date of death and others.
At the same time, the created database is in the process of constant replenishment, since the work of specialists in the archives of the Ministry of Defense and other specialized departments continues to this day. So, the project website reports that the last updates of information on the portal were made on March 22, 2014.
