This sounds like building remediation after the contents were degraded to the point cabbage started growing. Would be very interesting to know what is contained within this archive of any audio worth. I'd take a record made out of a discarded X-ray or other interesting object in unplayable shape to frame.
I have a good number of their recordings issued in CD by Harmonia Mundi / Melodiya - great performers and good recording quality, although sometimes noisy and with distortion in peaks. Surely very enjoyable.
Well before my time and probably no more than a footnote of interest to those keeping abreast of current events. Thought it might be of interest to someone who might not have picked up on it in a timely manner. The passing of a large archive might be of great or little importance.
I have quite a few dubs of Melodiya master tapes (15ips 2 track) that I obtained from Russia. The quality of the recordings is generally very high. However, Melodiya records have been known to have just average quality vinyl pressings. Starting in the late '60s and through the next 15 years or more, EMI had a license agreement with Melodiya and issued a very large number of their recordings (derived from their master tapes, IIRC) on their full price ASD label and also on box sets. This extended to the digital era. I think I have all the analogue recordings that they issued. Many great performers and less well known Russian (and Soviet) composers. I did a quick scan of my EMI collection and there are 230 Melodiya albums (including a fair number of box sets). Some of the great conductors are Mravinsky, Rozhdestvensky, Kondrashin, and Svetlanov. Artists include Gilels, Richter, Kogan, Oistrakh, Vishnevskaya, and Rostropovich. The quality of pressings is at the typically very high standards of EMI (British pressings). There are also many Angel (American EMI) pressings of Melodiya recordings - pressings are generally not as good as the British.
