Carrying out the “Eastern” policy, diplomatic relations and the wars waged by Russia against the Ottoman Empire in the XIX century, contacts with its subjects of different ethnic and religious groups strongly required some basic information to generate qualified decisions, their verification and examination. The absence or weakness of the regional academic disciplines (Slavic, Balkan and Oriental Studies) forced military and diplomatic officials to assume the role of researchers and experts. The transformation of the newly incorporated into the Russian Empire Bessarabia into original research platform was additionally associated with a number of factors. Its complex ethnic composition allowed to see it as “preproduction model” of the whole Balkan region. Expansionary trend, given by the war of 1806-1812, as well as the resistance of the Turkish authorities to implement the Treaty of Bucharest stimulated military planning which suggested to involve the subjects of the Ottoman Empire into the Russian campaigns. The events of the Greek revolution gave additional stress to these expectations. In addition, the concerns of the imperial administration to find the optimal ways of integration and adaptation of Bessarabia to the Russian management regime should be taken into account. The headquarters of the 2-nd Army under the leadership of P.D. Kiselyov became a major center of research. The initiative to organize the collection of topographic and “statistical” information came from other senior officers as well. Obviously, the governor M.S. Vorontsov also had an interest in this work. An impressive monument to this effort was a multi-volume dictionary of the Ottoman Empire in 6000 articles compiled by I.P. Liprandi.