About us

The Narva Central Library can be considered to have started in 1897, when the Narva Duty Free Library - Reading Room was opened in Narva. The idea of the library came from a group of liberal Russian intellectuals in the city, led by V.I.Nadporozhsky

The Narva city government gave the library premises in the town hall and promised to subsidize the purchase of books by 50 roubles a year, 25 roubles was to be a subsidy from the Yamburg county semstvo. The library was free of charge for readers. Even in Tallinn at that time there was no such possibility. As money to buy books was scarce, every opportunity to raise money was used: lotteries, charity evenings, etc... Thanks to this work and the donations of the townspeople, the number of books grew rapidly. In the first year the collection was 635 volumes, but by 1905 it had grown to 3,734. In the early 20th century, the Narva library was the largest in Estonia in terms of the number of books in Russian.

Aleksandra Nadporozhskaya, who was a teacher by education, started working as a librarian in Narva's first public library. She worked in the library free of charge, except for the free access to the skating rink donated by the city government. It is a testimony to Narva's librarian's abilities that she was one of six Estonian librarians to take part in the First All-Russian Library Congress in St Petersburg in 1911.

It is known that in the 1930s the library was located on the third floor of the stock exchange building. 1932.in 1911, the size of the collection was 16419 copies, of which 15102 were in Russian, 494 in Estonian, 386 in German, etc.... After 1944, the city library was located in Kommunaaride Street (Vestervalli). In 1945, 650 books were at the disposal of 472 readers. From 1948 to 1985 the service department of Narva City Library was housed in a small one-storey building with a stove, which was located exactly on the site of the present building. Due to lack of space, the Children's Department was located in the Pioneer Palace in the Town Hall and the Collection Department in the Pushkin Street dormitory. Lidia Yoselevich was the long-standing head of the library.

Before moving to the new building (1987) our library had 75041 items and 4838 readers. The modern Narva Central Library building has gone down in the history of Estonian librarianship by being the first in Estonia after World War II to be designed and built specifically for the city library. The Narva Central Library opened in the new building on 23 December 1987.