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A l’epoque de la limnologie naissante, le lac Tchoudsk etait tout entier compris dans l’Empire russe. Les premieres recherches repondirent au besoin de mieux connaitre et preserver les ressources halieutiques et ce fut Karl von Baer qui lanca ces etudes dans les annees 1850. Ces memes annees virent des recherches sur l’ensemble du lac et de son emissaire fluvial, la Narva, dans le but de canaliser celle-ci tout en abaissant le niveau du lac, puis de profiter de son potentiel energetique. Des les annees 1860, le geologue Gregor von Helmersen redigea la premiere monographie complete du lac Tchoudsk, mais il fallut attendre la campagne de 1895 menee par le geographe Joseph Spindler pour obtenir la premiere carte bathymetrique du lac et le trace des isothermes de la temperature de l’eau a toutes les profondeurs. Avant l’independance de l’Estonie issue de la Premiere Guerre Mondiale, la plupart des limnologues travaillant sur les lacs Tchoudsk et Pskov etaient des savants germano-baltes de citoyennete russe mettant a profit la rencontre de plusieurs cultures scientifiques.

At the beginning of limnology, Lake Chudsk was entirely included in the Russian Empire. The first research answered the need to better understand and preserve fishery resources. Karl von Baer initiated the project in the 1850s. In the same years, research was carried out on the entire lake and its outfall, the Narva, in order to channel its energy while lowering the lake water level and then take advantage of its energetic potential. In the 1860s, the geologist Gregor von Helmersen wrote the first complete monograph of Lake Chudsk, but it was not until the 1895 campaign led by the geographer Joseph Spindler that the first bathymetric map of the lake was produced and the isothermal pattern of the temperature at all depths were plotted. Before Estonia became independent at the end of the First World War, most of the limnologists working on Lakes Chudsk and Pskov were German-Baltic scientists of Russian citizenship, favoring the encounter of several scientific cultures.