Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, instructed to start preparing a new World Map with reliable names of geographical objects. He announced this at the tenth anniversary meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) in St. Petersburg.
“Today we face a situation when Russian names, which were given in the past centuries and decades by our explorers and travelers, are gradually being ousted from the World Map. Thus the memory of Russia’s contribution to the study of the planet and to the development of science is also being erased”.

V. V. Putin. April 27, 2018 | Russian Geographical Society HQ | St. Petersburg

Russian names of geographical objects discovered by outstanding Russian navigators can be found in every part of our planet. They can also be found in Oceania, with the island world of which Russia has had strong historical and scientific ties for more than two hundred years. The history of exploration of this region by Russian navigators is astonishing in its grandeur and scale. In Oceania alone there were discovered more than 70 geographical objects with Russian names. The work done by the Miklouho-Maclay Foundation team under the leadership of N.N. Miklouho-Maclay Jr to identify Russian names on the map of Oceania is another step towards reviving the continuity of exploration of Oceania by Russian scientists, preserving invaluable monuments of global historical and geographical heritage, and restoring Russian names of geographical objects on the World Map.