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Russias presidential library is to launch its own version of Wikipedia, claiming the popular web resource contains untrustworthy information about the country.

The Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, named after Russias first president, said it had already collected 50,000 books and archive documents from regional libraries in order to start work on its electronic encyclopedia.

Thus, the creation of an alternative to Wikipedia has begun, the library, which is based in St Petersburg, said in a statement. Analysis of that resource has shown that it is unable to give detailed and trustworthy information about Russias regions and the life of the country.

It was unclear what information on Wikipedia the library deemed unreliable and calls to its spokesman went answered on Friday. The new resource would objectively and accurately show the country and its population, and the diversity of the state and national structure of Russia, it said.

Wikipedia was launched by American entrepreneurs Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001. According to its own page on the resource, as of February this year it had 18 billion page views and nearly 500 million unique visitors each month.

A key principle of Wikipedia is that users can create accounts and participate in writing and editing themed entries.

The presidential library, which was established by Vladimir Putin, the current president, and opened in 2008, said the encyclopedia would be "open for constant renewal and update" but it was unclear whether it would allow reader participation in editing.

There was controversy in July when a Twitter bot tracked an account linked to Russian state television changing a Wikipedia entry on the MH17 plane crash to say it was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers.

In 2012, Wikipedia closed down its Russian language pages for a day in protest at a bill giving the state rights to block access to blacklisted websites.

The Russian encyclopaedia was "expected to become one of the most in-demand resources on the Runet", the presidential library said.

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Russian library to launch web rival to 'untrustworthy' Wikipedia