A part of the archival legacy of Andrei Fedorovich Likhachev, one of the brightest representatives of the Kazan school of archaeology of the second half of the 19^th century, is analyzed in the article. A.F. Likhachev’s archives are currently fragmented and stored in various archival funds in Kazan, Moscow and St. Petersburg. A considerable compendium of documents from the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan is published and analyzed in the article. The documents refer to A.F. Lichachev’s correspondence with representatives of scientific and artistic circles concerning his own research. The analysis of A.F. Likhachev’s creative laboratory on the basis of his epistolary legacy makes it possible to notice that the researcher’s contacts in the framework of activities of various scientific organizations had played an important role in his growth as a scholar, forming research skills and scientific activity ethics.