Read Russian war letters from the front
Millions of Soviet soldiers sent letters home from the front during World War II, often written in pencil on folded paper triangles (frontovye treugolniki). Upload a photo of the letter. FamilyLore transcribes the Russian cursive line by line, translates it into English, and marks doubtful words.
Your first three pages need no account and no card.
A 20th-century Russian letter from our shelf, as read
A dotted underline marks a word FamilyLore was unsure of; [?] is its own note on a doubtful reading.
Russian cursive letter
- море штиль - плывешь как в аквариуме.
- Крабов больших нет а маленьких - тьма-
- тьмущая. Вот уж - действительно санитары
- моря. Я вначале не верил, что можно
- бросать пищевые отходы в море - а потом
- посмотрел, волн на берег да, нельзя, там они
- будут гнить шторма или дождя, а в море
- тонут и бесследно исчезают.
Also on the shelf: V. K. Arsenyev’s 1910 letter in pre-1918 Russian · Lapatin’s 1792 Irkutsk letter in 18th-century cursive
How well it reads, measured
| Script | Pages | Characters read correctly | Names, dates and numbers right | Misread words it marked | Last run |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Russian and Ukrainian7 pages · 3 Nov 2026 | 7 | 86%Characters read correctly | 69%Names, dates and numbers right | 80%Misread words it marked | 3 Nov 2026 |
Measured on 20th-century Russian cursive handwriting against human transcriptions. Results update as more pages are evaluated. How well FamilyLore reads
Questions
- Can’t ChatGPT do this?
- A general chatbot can read some Russian war letters, sometimes well, but it usually hands you clean text with no sign of which words it guessed, and its makers publish no figures for this script; FamilyLore marks the words it is unsure of and publishes how often it reads correctly, in the table above.
- What were triangular letters (frontovye treugolniki)?
- Due to wartime envelope shortages, Soviet field post letters were folded into compact triangles with the sender and recipient addresses written directly on the outer folds. Unfold the letter completely flat before photographing.
- What if it reads a word wrong?
- Tap a word to see the other readings FamilyLore weighed, and correct it if you know better. The translation is redone from your correction. Most misread words carry a mark, but not every one, so a name or a date that matters is worth checking against the photo.
- Who sees my pages?
- Only you. A page becomes public only if you share it, and then only to people who have the link. Deleting your account deletes the photos you uploaded.
What FamilyLore doesn’t read well yet
- Creases, tears, or paper folds that obscure letters across fold lines. Flatten sheets before photographing.
- Faint pencil writing typical of battlefield conditions. Faded pages are measured on only a few pages so far.
- Official military forms or casualty records arranged in tabular columns.
From photo to text in three steps
Take a photo of the page
Lay the sheet flat, in daylight and without flash. A phone photo of the whole page is enough.
Upload it
“Russian or Ukrainian, 1941 to 1945” is already chosen.
Read it
You get the page as it was written, in modern spelling, and in English. Correct a word you know better yourself.
Rather read it yourself?