A group of researchers from the KarRC RAS under the leadership of Ekaterina Zakharova started working on the "TopKar – Toponymy of Karelia" project in 2022, supported by Russian Science Foundation Grant No. 22-28-00362. Karelian linguists and mathematicians jointly developed the geographic information resource "TopKar – Toponymy of Karelia" and have been actively populating it with data. It is widely acknowledged that this resource remains unmatched in Russia, sparking keen interest both within the scientific community and among people unrelated to academia.
Even after the grant funding expiration in 2024, new data continue to be added to the resource.
The team has evolved over time, but it has permanently included Ekaterina Zakharova, Senior Researcher of the ILLH Linguistics Section; Irma Mullonen, RAS Corresponding Fellow, Professor, and Chief Researcher of the ILLH Linguistics Section; Andrey Krizhanovsky, Leading Researcher and Head of the Laboratory of Computer Information Technologies at the Institute of Applied Mathematical Research (IAMR); Natalya Krizhanovskaya, Leading Research Engineer at the Laboratory of Computer Information Technologies, as well as doctoral students studying at the ILLH.
Today, not only residents of Karelia visit our portal, but also people from other regions of the country; and there are users from Finland. Understandably, these are primarily scientists, tour guides, and specialists from tourist firms. It is especially gratifying however that our work is in demand among ordinary users, who are trying to trace back their ancestry, to look at, and perhaps even visit the places where their ancestors used to live. That is why we strive to make our resource as comprehensive and accessible to the public as possible, -- added Ekaterina Zakharova.
To date, the resource contains as many as 59 771 place names, with 7 801 of them mapped. By and large, a massive volume of work still lies ahead. The number of place-name files held in the archive of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature, and History totals 300 000. The scientists are guided by statistics from 1926, when there were 2 852 settlements in Karelia. Today, for comparison, only about 800 remain. The fact that the number of villages has dropped several-fold makes the project work more complicated rather than easier, especially as regards mapping. Furthermore, there are fewer and fewer carriers of information about the traditional place names of Karelian villages still alive. Meanwhile, for a place name to be entered into the TopKar system, it is necessary to combine a vast body of knowledge accumulated over many decades with the results of recent expeditions. Many would be surprised to learn that the Karelian tradition was to give a name to literally everything surrounding even a very small village. Meadows, paths, small ponds, headlands, shores, notable rocks and trees, and even individual peasant houses all had their own names. During expeditions, scientists talk to local elders trying to recover all this knowledge, map it, and describe it, including the background and reasoning behind a place name, its mentions across different times, and its fate.
-- This is a meticulous and painstaking job, sometimes even resembling detective work. Mapping the place names is especially challenging, as there is often a lack of precise data to link a specific location to the geographic map. Yet, that is our principal task – to describe a place name and specify its location, – says Ekaterina Zakharova.
The resource itself continues to evolve. For instance, a new section has been added, covering the Northern Ladoga region. Studies of this area commenced much later than for the rest of Karelia, and moreover, its population composition changed profoundly after the Great Patriotic War. Nonetheless, the TopKar resource already contains 2,905 place names related to the Northern Ladoga region. Another interesting section is misspelled place names. There are 156 of these so far, but their number will be growing as the sources are scrutinized. Another section many will find useful is place name associated with legends and folklore (the namings as explained by locals); it currently contains 353 entries. To help the users get the hang of the resource and start utilizing all of its capabilities as quickly as possible, TopKar authors added a user guide to the website.