1. 13th meeting of Baltic Division of United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names took place in Vilnius, Lithuania upon invitation of National Land Service of Lithuania and State Commission of the Lithuanian Language. The capital of Lithuania Vilnius is also a cultural capital of Europe 2009 while Lithuania is celebrating the Millennium of the Name of Lithuania.
2. Experts from the following member countries of Baltic Division took part in the meeting: Estonia (Aule Kikas – Chair of the Baltic Division, Mall Kivisalu, Peeter Päll, Olev Veskimäe), Russian Federation (Vladimir Boginskiy – Vice-chair of the Baltic Division, Marina Morozova, Sergey Shestakov), Latvia (Dace Kavace, Vita Strautniece), Lithuania (Danutė Mardosienė, Jūratė Palionytė, Aistė Pangonytė, Tomas Duksa, etc.); experts from the observing countries: Poland (Katarzyna Pryszewska, Maciej Zych) and Ukraine (Nataliia Kizilova, Nataliia Pinchuk, Iryna Rudenko). There were also about 30 participants from different state institutions and enterprises of Lithuania. Full list of participants is in the Annex 1.
3. Participants of the meeting discussed and adopted the agenda of the 13th meeting of Baltic Division (Annex 2).
4. Peeter Päll and Vladimir Boginskiy presented information on the 25th session of United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names that took place in May 2009 in Nairobi.
5. Participants of the meeting exchanged information about the status of legal, methodical and organisational base of national standardisation of geographic names, about status and development perspectives of national toponymy databases (cadastres, registers etc.) creation works, about world dictionaries of toponymy and national systems of romanization, about the projects EuroGeoNames and EuroRegionalMap. There was an exhibition of specific cartographic production, toponymy glossaries and dictionaries that have been published in Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Estonia, Poland and Ukraine.
6. Participants of the meeting were informed about the next 26th session of United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names in 2011.
7. Participants of the meeting discussed the next meeting of Baltic Division. Next meeting according to rotation principle is anticipated in Latvia in 2010.
8. It was recommended to publish the materials and other documents of the 13th meeting of Baltic Division on the website of the Baltic Division (http://eki.ee/knn/ungegn/bd_ru.htm; http://eki.ee/knn/ungegn/index.htm).
9. Representatives of the participating countries expressed intent of further cooperation and contacts.
10. Participants of the meeting significated high level organisation of the 13th meeting of Baltic Division and expressed thanks to the organizers of the meeting – National Land Service and State Commission of the Lithuanian Language of Lithuania.
11. Minutes have been prepared in English and Russian languages.
Aule KIKAS
Chair of Baltic Division of United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN)