The Russian Railway Enthusiasts’ Society was founded on July 25, 1990.

Since 2008, our full official name has been the "Railway Enthusiasts’ Society" Inter-Regional Public Organization (VOLZD).

We preserve and promote the historical heritage of railway transport and work to enhance its public image. We also foster interest in railways among the youth and help educate future railway workers. We develop railway modeling and collect all types of information regarding railways.

The Society has several sections devoted to the preservation of vintage machinery, the organization of heritage tours, modeling, photography and video, art and literature, and science and technology.

We have contributed to the acquisition of vintage machinery for five railway museums in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, and Rostov-on-Don. In total, the Society has helped preserve more than 200 historical locomotives and railway cars and assisted in founding a heritage park.

An annual May 9th heritage tour for World War II veterans is organized by the Society. Additionally, 17 different steam-powered heritage tours have taken place across three railroads. Since 1990, 36 such tours have been conducted.

Three documentary films have been produced, one of which was featured at the Oberhausen festival. Hundreds of radio broadcasts, newspaper, and magazine articles have been created by our members, including a long-running column on steam locomotives in the well-known "Technology for the Youth" magazine in 2005-06, authored by Leonid Makarov.

Three books dedicated to the history of Class E and Class S steam locomotives (by Leonid Makarov and Alexander Nikolsky) and to the daily life of Russian railways (by Aleksey Voulfov) have been published, as well as a series of postcards featuring Russian steam locomotives and railway cars.

Several modeling and photo exhibitions and thematic conferences have also taken place.

We continuously search for and collect all types of information on surviving vintage locomotives and railway cars, as well as semaphores, station buildings, and related machinery and architecture. Our main area of interest is Russia and the countries of the former USSR, but we are always open to international cooperation.

The Society works in close cooperation with the Russian Railways (RZD) company. We also closely cooperate with nine railway museums in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Rostov-on-Don, Saratov, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, and Yuzhno-Sahalinsk.

The Society has three regional departments in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Rostov-on-Don.

The Society is headed by Aleksey Voulfov (Chairman) and Alexander Nikolsky (Vice-Chairman).