A meeting of the Learned Council of the Karelian Research Centre RAS took place on December 20. It started with an award ceremony. Award pin of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation "Honorary Mentor" was bestowed on Alexander Titov, Head of Laboratory of Plant Ecological Physiology, Institute of Biology KarRC RAS. Badge of Honor from the Head of the Republic of Karelia “For contribution to the development of the Republic of Karelia” was awarded to Sergey Svetov, Director of the Institute of Geology KarRC RAS. Certificates of Merit from RAS were issued to Sergey Bugmyrin, Head of Laboratory of Animal and Plant Parasitology, Institute of Biology KarRC RAS, and Olga Meshcheryakova, Deputy Director for Science of the Institute of Biology KarRC RAS.


Award handed over to Alexander Titov, Head of Laboratory of Plant Ecological Physiology, Institute of Biology KarRC RAS

The core agenda of the meeting was opened by a presentation made by Leading Researcher of the Laboratory of Computer Information Technology at the Institute of Applied Mathematical Research KarRC RAS Andrey Krizhanovsky. His topic was “Opening hidden Web data: example of the toponymy of Karelia system”.

Specialists at the Institute of Applied Mathematical Research and Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History KarRC RAS are working on the toponymic web service TopKar. The system will contain full information on place names and enable searching for and displaying objects on the map. The TopKar online system is being developed on the basis of the geographic information and analytical system "Toponymy of Karelia". It was created in 2003-2010 by staff of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History KarRC RAS and the GIS Department of the Petrozavodsk State University. This local system was not connected to the Web.


Speaking Andrey Krizhanovsky

— We are now figuring out how to integrate TopKar with web search engines. So that users can enter a place name and find TopKar website pages among the search results. The challenge for such search engines is that TopKar pages are dynamical, i.e. after a user enters a query, the TopKar system queries the database and generates a web page automatically. Unless special methods are applied, such pages cannot be indexed by search engines, they are "invisible" to them. Our task is to include the dynamical pages from the deep Web into the body of available and indexed search resources using the TopKar geoinformation resource as an example, — told Andrey Krizhanovsky.

Since the TopKar system uses maps of the OpenStreetMap system, we need to convert local maps into digital maps of the OpenStreetMap system. To this end, researchers have developed an automated method for converting the coordinates of place names from the old local TopKar system to the new online version.

The scientists’ work was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation. According to the Research Leader, Researcher at Linguistics Section, Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History KarRC RAS Ekaterina Zakharova, what makes this project unique is that it helps preserve and digitalize the intangible cultural heritage of our republic.

— The project implementation ends this year. For comparison, there are some 16 thousand place names in the catalog available on the Russian Federal Registration Service website. Our card index, on the other hand, contains more than 300 thousand names in Russian, Karelian, Veps, and Sami languages. Moreover, our goal is not only to enter this information, but also to accurately link it to maps, — shared Ekaterina Zakharova.


Ekaterina Zakharova, Researcher, Linguistics Section, Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History KarRC RAS

The TopKar database currently includes 1 377 place names with geographic coordinates and 52 thousand completed electronic place name forms.

The meeting also approved the schedule for publication of the Transactions of KarRC RAS journal and Learned Council sessions next year.

Photos by V. Shvetsova, A. Krizhanovsky / KarRC RAS