thanks for your compliments i don't remember much more about admiral makarov than what i wrote in the stub i agree with the need of consistency in transliteration i think however that when some russian term is already established in english the established transliteration should take precedence of the letter by letter rule my impression not confirmed though a thorough search though is that kniaz iz a more common english usage of the russian word however the google counts for kniaz and knyaz are close enough so my impression is rather subjective also the article you refered me to gives two choices for transliteration of as both velikiy or veliky'' the former term seems better to me but again this is rather subjective what do you think i would be happy to abide with a consensus decision in the future regards irpen mar utc