mailbag (asker) Apr 23, 2010:

Thank you all for your suggestions.

Andrei Vybornov Apr 23, 2010:

Frankly I am not an expert. To the best of my knowledge it is some sort of Surveyor's Office. Russian name comes from "land cadastre".

Jack Doughty Apr 23, 2010:

Thank you, Andrei. So what is кадастровая палата? The only definition of кадастр/cadaster I have found so far is "inventory", and I can't make any sense out of that.

Andrei Vybornov Apr 23, 2010:

No, Jack It is not. I just meant to say that engineers in it are not "engineers" in the proper sense of this word. And I specifically mentioned that although 'specialist' would render the meaning of an "expert" better than 'engineer', the combination of "specialist, second class" may bring unwanted associations with the US Army. Of course кадастровая палата has nothing to do with the army :)