When the site opens, it shows the dialect division: each settlement is coloured or patterned according to its dialect group. Dark lines mark the boundaries of the macro-dialects, thin grey lines the boundaries of the groups, and a dotted line surrounds the Chukhloma island. Hover over a row of the legend on the right to keep only that group on the map; the others turn pale grey.

All maps are in the Maps tab (), arranged by volume (phonetics, morphology, syntax, lexis) and by topic within each volume. The search field above them finds maps by title or number, and also by words from feature names: such maps open with only the matching features shown.

• clicking a map title shows the whole map;
• the arrow on the right opens the list of the map’s features;
• the tick box next to a map or a feature adds it to what is already shown, so features of different maps and different volumes can be combined on one map.

The “On the map” list under the search field shows what is displayed now. The cross in a row removes that map.

The tab describes the classification by N. N. Pšeničnova, and the “Open the map” button shows it in place of the dialect division. Click a type, group or section in the legend to highlight its areas on the map and fade the rest; click again to remove the highlighting. The type of a settlement is shown in the tooltip and in the settlement card. Choosing an atlas map opens the main map; the browser’s Back button returns to the classification.

The legend is on the right. Hover over a row to keep only that feature on the map; everything else turns pale grey. Clicking the map title or the arrow in the legend header collapses and expands the whole legend. The cross in a map’s header removes only that map; the “Reset all” button removes everything at once. In table legends, sections collapse when you click the section title.

The palette icon () in the legend header switches on pattern editing. Click a pattern in the legend to open a window with colours and patterns. Choose a colour, then a pattern, and the map is redrawn. The first sample is a solid fill, the second is the atlas pattern in the chosen colour. “Restore the atlas pattern” in the window brings back the feature’s original pattern; “Restore the atlas patterns” under the legend header restores all patterns at once. “Done” or another click on the palette switches pattern editing off, and clicking a pattern highlights the feature again.

Changed patterns are kept in the link to the map and in the PDF. In the lite version the colour of the circles can be changed in the same way.

The Programme questions tab () lists the questions of the “Programme for Collecting Data for the Dialectological Atlas of the Russian Language” (1947) from whose answers the maps shown were compiled.

The “+” and “−” buttons in the top left corner of the map or the mouse wheel change the zoom; the button with a frame below them shows the whole territory.

If the map is slow, turn on the “Lite version” switch at the bottom of the Maps tab (): settlements are then shown as coloured dots in place of polygons. Everything else works the same way.

The button with a circular arrow () to the right of the zoom buttons removes the maps and the selected features in one click, closes the settlement card and returns the map to the overview, as when the site is first opened. The browser’s Back button restores what was there.

Hover over a settlement to see a tooltip with its name, region, district and its features on the maps currently shown. Click a settlement to open its card in the Settlement tab (): region, district, the university that surveyed it and the year of the survey. Below are four lists: phonetics, morphology, syntax, lexis. Choose a map in a list, and the settlement’s features on that map appear under it. The “Download the features as Excel” button saves all features of the settlement to a table.

Settlements can be found in the Search tab (): by the first letters of the name, by the settlement number or in the list of regions and districts. Choose a settlement, and the map moves to it.

The chain icon () to the right of the settlement name in its card copies a link to this settlement: it opens the same map with the settlement card.

Click a feature in the legend, on its caption or its pattern (in a table legend, on a cell): the settlements that have it are filled with the selection colour and outlined, the rest fade. Click another feature to add the settlements that have it, in a colour of their own. A row with the selected features and the number of settlements appears in the legend under the map title. Clicking a feature again or the cross in its frame removes it; “clear” empties the selection.

The list of settlements found can be downloaded as an Excel table with the “download” button.

When several maps are open, features can be selected in the legend of any of them and combined in one query.

The “advanced query” switch shows the links between features. Click the “or” link to change it to “and”, and back. The “and” link keeps the settlements that have all the features at once. “And” binds more tightly: the query “okanye and merger into [ts] or merger into [tsʲ]” means “(okanye and merger into [ts]) or merger into [tsʲ]”: it finds the settlements that have both okanye and non-palatalized tsokanye, and all settlements with palatalized tsokanye.

Clicking the grey “not” in a feature’s frame keeps the settlements that lack this feature.

In an advanced query the chain ends with the link “or …”, which a click changes to “and …”. A feature you click in the legend is added to the end of the chain with this link. Clicking the feature again removes it: with “and”, from the last part of the query; with “or”, the part where it stands alone. The cross in a feature’s frame also removes it.

The same feature can be put into different parts of the query, so any formula can be written. Queries have no brackets, but a formula with brackets can be expanded: “A and (B or C)” is entered as “A and B or A and C”.

Each part of the query between “or” links has its own colour. The area of the matching settlements is outlined in it on the map, and the features are marked with it in the legend. Under the chain, the same query is given in words with the number of settlements for each part. Turning the switch off returns to the simple view if the query has no “and” and no “not”.

The button with a down arrow () to the right of the zoom buttons, under the reset button, saves the map shown as a PDF, with its title, a link to it and the legend. The map in the file is vector-based: it can be enlarged without loss of sharpness and printed at any size.

The chain icon () in the legend header, next to the arrow, copies a link to what is shown now: maps, features, query and the open settlement. The link opens the same map.