In 2025, the Editorial and Publishing Department released 44 publications. The ones that attracted the most public attention include the monographs “Kurkijoki. Archaeology, History, Culture” by Svetlana Kochkurkina and Marina Petrova, “Livvi Villages from A to Ä: A Dictionary of Populated Place Names” by Denis Kuzmin, Irma Mullonen, and Ekaterina Zakharova, “Poetry of Finland from Neo-Romanticism to Rap Lyrics” by Elena Soini, “Artistic Endeavors of the Minority Literatures of Karelia in the 20th – Early 21st Century” by Natalia Chikina, a set of popular science books for children “Enlightening Journeys of Karelian Baby Animals” by Anna Danilova and Sergey Svetov, as well as books ordered for publication by the Republic of Karelia Musical Theatre, National Museum of Karelia, Kizhi Open-air Museum, and others.
The head of the department, Alexander Seleznyov, informed that the department today is, in fact, as a compact publishing and printing house.
The prepress preparation section is staffed with professionals in their field: a prepress process engineer, three editors, and a desktop publishing operator. They produce layouts of paper and electronic publications upon thorough editorial processing and fulfilling all publishing standards.
Leading editors Elena Azorkina, Lilia Kabanova, Margarita Radostina
The equipment of the printing and post-press processing sections facilitates almost the entire printing production cycle: a CTP (computer-to-plate) machine, two German-made offset printing machines that handle the majority of black-and-white products, a riso printer, paper-cutting, thermal binding, and other machinery. The staff includes a leading equipment setup engineer, a printing machine startup specialist, two press operators, and bookbinders. Each of them is a highly skilled specialist with years of experience.
EPD Deputy Head Tatyana Utkina
– We perform almost all operations. The customer only needs to provide us with ToR, text, and illustrations, after which the department's staff work step by step to create the layout of the future publication, do the typesetting and editing, and run the print, – explained Alexander Seleznyov.
Desktop publishing operator Marina Fyodorova
Until recently, nearly all publications were printed with offset machines with the layout first transferred onto printing plates. Now, with the acquisition of new equipment – a RICOH Pro C5300S digital printing machine – digital printing technology is used. Essentially, this is a powerful version of a color printer with extensive capabilities. The new equipment has had several effects at once. Firstly, print quality has improved tangibly. Secondly, the speed of producing printed materials has increased. Thirdly, it has become possible to produce small print runs and, if necessary, reprint the required number of copies.
EPD Head Alexander Seleznyov with a new digital printing machine
– There are now many enthusiasts who gather material and write books about their native places. Memoirs and autobiographies are becoming a popular genre. Some still find is crucial to have paper copes printed. There are authors who’d like to have their books published with small print runs. We take printing orders starting from ten copies. Doing this with an offset machine would be costly, but for greater print runs, it can be used more efficiently.
– The output of offset and digital machines is compatible, so we can, for example, print black-and-white parts with the former and color inserts with the latter. This approach has already been used in producing issues of the “Transactions of the Karelian Research Centre RAS”, where the color pages were printed with the new machines, – added Alexander Seleznyov.
Books published by the KarRC RAS Editorial and Publishing Department have won awards from a number of book competitions. In 2014, the department received the most prestigious printing award in Karelia, the Book of the Year 2014, for publishing “The Pimenovs: A Dynasty of Entrepreneurs, Benefactors, and Public Figures” by Nikolai Korablev and Tatyana Moshina. Today, despite the general trend of abandoning printed products for the Internet, the KarRC RAS Editorial and Publishing Department remains one of the most active publishing organizations in Karelia.
We congratulate our colleagues on Russian Printing Day!
