Association of Estonian Surveyors
 

The present Association of  Estonian Surveyors, which according to its statutes succeeds the association registered by Tallinn-Haapsalu Commission of the peace on the 27^th of Feb. 1926 (reg. No. 978), continues the activities interrupted by the Soviets in 1940 and continues to carry out the main ideas   of its statues of 1938. Association of Estonian Surveyors was restored on the general meeting on the 16^th of November, 1989 where a new constitution was adopted. It was amended on the general meeting of 6th of February, 1992.

Estonian surveyors have also founded their own organisation even before the year of 1926. The newspaper “The Announcer of St. Petersburg” (no. 70) from the 5^th of September, 1909 published the project of the Estonian society of Russian surveyors and there was an announcement in the same newspaper no. 92, 1909, where the board of founders summoned a congress on the 28^th of December, 1909. About 30 people participated in it. One of the initiators there was Jakob Lukats (1878-1947), a post-graduate who was born in Estonia and who was a member of the board of the association in the 1930ties. On the anniversary of its 10^th year of existence in 1935, J. Lukats wrote in the magazine “Geodeet No. 1”:”Estonian surveyors had already at that time joined together in the fight for their ideals of this field, but politicians could not even dream about an independent Estonia. From the earliest days of the republic an organised group of surveyors started to build up our republic, to carry out the most important task - land reform”.     

After establishing the Republic of Estonia in 1918 many Estonian surveyors, who had got their education during the time of tsarist Russia and who had to find a job outside their own country, returned to Estonia. At first they had a lot of work here, especially in connection with land reform. Their work consisted of dividing the land of manors, establishing new farms, frontiers, drawing up maps and charts. In 1920 building of basic geodetic network began by founding triangulation network in order to map East Estonia on the scale of 1:25000. Estonian and Finnish surveyors began their co-operation to map and connect geodetically the northern and southern coasts of the FinnishGulf.

The work in the field of founding geodetic network became more extensive when in 1924 Geodetic commission of the Baltic was initiated by professor I. Bonsdorf. Its aim was to co-ordinate geodetic and cartographic work in the states around the Baltic for founding the unitary system of geodetic co-ordinates and scientific investigation of the shape of the geoids. As a result of this work a precise triangulation network covering the whole territory was established by 1940 (I-IV order) which had also been tightened with founding the I and II order polygonometric traverses. At the same time precise levelling traverses were set up for about 1800 km. These bench marks are still the basis of our levelling network. 

As there was practically no geodetic network covering the whole territory, topographical and cadastral measuring was carried out without solid basic network. Therefore numerous plans of cadastral units drawn up in the course of land reform were neither mutually nor regionally connected. It was impossible to determine the location of farms. Besides, about 90% of the cadastral plans, according to Richard Tiitso (manager of cadastral register office) were “poor drawings which should not be spoken about and reading or explaining of which is almost impossible and which do not meet the requirements of being correct”. Under these circumstances some active surveyors became worried about the prospects of their work, its technical level and lack of legislation. The only way out seemed to be their own organisation. That was named Association of Estonian Surveyors. A lot of specialists from different fields were involved in its work, e.g. geodesists, astronomers, geographers, topographers, cartographers, surveyors, agricultural technicians, hydrographers, mine surveyors, etc. The first statute of the society was compiled by A. Lilienthal, who later was an active board member and the editor of the magazine “Geodeet”. The chairmen of the board of the organisation from 1926-1936 and in 1940 have been the founder of the association - the manager of the cadastral register office of the Ministry of Agriculture and the teacher of survey and land management at Tallinn Technical School - Richard Tiitso, from 1937-1940 the manager of  Institute of Nature Protection and Tourism -  Peeter Päts. During the period from 1927-1940 the society  edited  24 issues of the magazine “Geodeet”, it compiled and printed “The guidelines for surveying  and drawing up cadastral maps “ (Oct.21.1927), it prepared and  printed  “The law of survey “ which was adopted with its supplements by the Estonian parliament on March 26, 1934 ( it came into effect on Aug.1, 1935) .

According to “The law of survey” Geodesic committee was organised to the Ministry of Agriculture as an advisory body. Its duty was to organise the work of surveyors. The chairman of the committee was K. Puhvel, manager of the Cadastral Register Office of the Ministry of Agriculture.

The society was actively involved in organising advanced training courses for chartered surveyors, e.g. in the winter of 1934 a three-month course was organised for the surveyors preparing for their exams. There were over 100 participants in these courses. 159 chartered surveyors had been registered by 1939. One of the most important fields of activity was developing outer contacts. The International Union of Surveyors was contacted, as well as similar organisations from Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, England and from many other countries. The membership of the association was divided into sections according to their specialities and location. By the year of 1939 there were 8 departments in Estonia: in Tallinn, Tartu, Vōru, Viljandi, Pärnu, Kuressaare, Rakvere and Narva.            

Association of Estonian Surveyors was liquidated by the Soviet authorities in September 1940. At that time the organisation had 201 members, the chairman of the board was R. Tiitso, the vice-chairman was J. Joasaar, the treasurer was A. Toom, the first assistant was R. Kangor, and the second assistant was A. Peets.

The association got a formal permission to exist during the years of German occupation, but actually did nothing important during these years. The magazine “Geodeet” did not appear either. After the WWII all kind of activities of professional associations were abolished and geodetic-surveyors as well as people of other specialities could only be members of trade unions. 

In 1946 Saku Vocational School of Land Management and Amelioration (a branch of TallinnTechnicalSchool) was founded. The school trained surveyors and ameliorators of the soil until the beginning of 1960-ties. Many of those who have finished this school are still very active in this field. The EstonianAgriculturalAcademy, founded in 1951, started to train and teach engineers of land management and amelioration. The studies were directed by the chair of geodesy, the head of which was senior-teacher R. Tiitso from 1951- 1952.

The engineers of geodesy of the present time get their education at Institute of Land Survey of Estonian Agricultural University. In 1994 KehtnaAgriculturalCollege started to train surveyors. For the last decades these specialists have also been trained at Tallinn Technical School of Construction and Mechanics and in high schools of Moscow. The graduates of these educational establishments form the majority of the present association.

  It has to be pointed out that the re-establishment of the association in 1989 did not start from an empty place. A very big role in it also had the committee of geodesy which had tight contacts with different specialists, all kind of meetings and gatherings took place. The Estonian society of the Soviet Astronomy and Geodesy Association (Charles Villman at the head) organised seminars and annual meetings. Scientific conferences where specialists and scientists from other Soviet republics participated were held.

The initiators of the re-establishment are the active members of the association (in alphabetical order): Ott Ambur, Jüri Jagomägi, Olaf Kaselaid (the author of the statutes), Madis Kaing, Kalju Kukkur, Taimi Lokotar, Holger Oidjärv, Adolf Ostonen, Heiki Potter, Valdo Prommik (sen.), Jüri Randjärv, Avo Saue, Aadu Sutt, Lembit Tamme, Tambet Tiits, Ants Torim, Aleksander Vallner, Lev Vassiljev, Kaljo Veskimets, Ado Värava and many others. The organisation has 150 members now. There are 11 members in the board: J. Randjärv (president), V. Solna (vice president), J. Aavik, U. Ahven,  T. Heinloo, A. Jõgi, R. Lainevool, M. Pikkor, M. Saavik, M. Sarapik, T. Tomingas, the technical secretary is Ms Diana Õunpuu  (telephone +372 672 0707, e-mail egu@egu.ee).   

Among the most important achievements of the association are publishing the magazine “Geodeet”, compiling a glossary for surveyors (O. Kaselaid, 1994), developing outer contacts with colleagues of neighbouring countries, organising several international conferences and seminars, joining the international organisation of surveyors – FIG (1992), developing contacts with CLGE and with similar societies of northern countries. The members of Association of Estonian Surveyors have participated in solving problems of land reform and of geodesy-cartography; they have been active in discussions of bills concerning land. Its members have been involved in the work of Geodetic Commission of the Baltic States as well as in the work of the Board of Geodesy and Cartography, formed in 1993. In 1995 was reorganised into Committee of Geodesy and Cartography, it was subordinated to the minister of environment. The present minister of environment has not summoned a meeting of this committee. 

Professor Valdek Raiend, who is our foreign member from Canada, has supported us a lot. He has given lectures in Tartu and Tallinn; he has presented some twenty or thirty items of professional literature, a video about his own professional life and his personal archive materials to our library. Also help from our Finnish colleagues has been of immense moral and materialistic value. In 1992 at the opening of the days of surveyors in Helsinki in the theatre “Savoy” the chairman of the Finnish Society of Surveyors Mr. Jukka Artimo donated 17,550 FIM, to which later was added 210 FIM as sole donations. This money was raised by Finnish surveyors to support Association of Estonian Surveyors. By that the Finnish colleagues paid back their debt of honour. It was the help, which Estonian surveyors had given to the Finnish people who had suffered from the war of 1940.

The information about our association and the activities of the board can be found in the articles of the magazines “Geodeet” and in the annual reports.

Jüri Randjärv, PhD (Eng), professor-emeritus
Estonian Agricultural University
Kreutzwaldi 5,

Tartu 51014
Estonia, e-mail: jyri.randjarv@eau.ee