The Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (Russian: Информационное телеграфное агентство России, Informatsionnoye telegrafnoye agentstvo Rossii; abbr. ИТАР-Тасс, Итар-Тасс; ITAR-Tass, Itar-Tass), is the major news agency of Russia. It is headquartered in Moscow.
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Its origin is in a letter sent by Finance Minister Vladimir Kokovtsov to foreign minister in March 1904 writing that "our trade and industrial circles, as well as the Finance Ministry, are ever more in need of an independent exchange of information with foreign countries by telegraph and of a way to make internal business developments widely-known".
In July 1904 a meeting was held about setting up an official telegraph agency, St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency (SPTA). Its purpose was "to distribute political, financial, economic, trade, and other information of public interest within the country and abroad...". SPTA began work as Russia's official news agency on September 1, 1904.
On August, 1914, one day after St. Petersburg was renamed Petrograd, SPTA was renamed the Petrograd Telegraph Agency (PTA). It was seized by Bolsheviks on November, 1917; on December, PTA is decreed to be the central information agency of the Soviet Russian Council of People's Commissars'.
On September, 1918, PTA and the Press Bureau of Council of People's Commissars' were merged into the Russian Telegraph Agency (Rosta). From it in July 1925 the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS, Tass) was created by decree of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.
In January 1992, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a Presidential Decree signed by President Boris Yeltsin re-defined status of Tass which is the abbreviation for Telegrafnoye Agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza, or, in English, The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union, and changed its name to the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia. In May 1994 The Russian Government adopted a resolution "On approval of the Charter of the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia", under which it operates as a central government news agency. It was wanted that the known Tass remains in the name abbreviation, so Tass became the specifier of the official name Телеграфное агентство связи и сообщения, Telegrafnoye agentstvo svazi i soobshcheniya, i.e. the Telegraph agency of communication and messages.
It is state-owned and according to its website now produces about 700 newspaper pages per day. It has 74 bureaus and offices in Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and 65 bureaus in 62 other countries.
According to Russian law, Itar-Tass must be cited when its news reports are distributed by others.