[Carl-Fredrik Geust]

I am fully aware of the "green paper" solution of some archive problems as referred to by MB. This - very unethical - solution can however never be applied by any individual researcher - as I mentioned not even rather small fees for use of portable computers can be paid to the RGVA office, how then and to whom to pay bigger amounts of money....

The methods applied are usually some sort of bilateral agreements between various (often governmental) organizations, archives, universities etc, with compensation paid officially on a high level. The level and amount of archival services are correspondingly fixed beforehand on paper. Some sort of direct services to the archive can also be applied (like printing of publications, delivery of fax machines, copying machines and paper etc).

For an individual, enthusiast researcher such compensation schemes are hardly useful, if his research topic is not explicetely mentioned in the respective protocols and agreements (this is very seldom, if at all the case concerning research and comparision of air victories and claims...).
To illustrate my point I can mention that I worked some yours ago in an intergovernmental Finnish-Russian historical research project (unfortunately not at all related to aviation history...), in which I had the opportunity of being probably the first foreign reserarcher visiting a certain archive in NW Russia. As I had in my pocket the general agreement entitling me to order up to 2.000 xerox copies (from documents selected by me) for a price of 1 USD/page I got really outstanding service (although the archive was formally closed because of construction works!), the staff had apparently got explicite orders to do anything in order to enable me to order the full amount of agreed copies!!

Thus I got immediately (really within minutes!) all files requested by me (which could be identified as related to the specified research subejct...). In two visits of three days each to this archive I probably checked several hundred (if not thousand files) - or certainly more files than I would be able to see in RGVA or TsAMO during the rest of my lifetime!