The Moscow province consisted of 15 districts: Volokolamsk district, Mozhaisky district, Vereisky district, Podolsk district, Nikitsky district, Serpukhov district, Kolomensky district, Bronnitsky district, Moscow district, Voskresensky district, Klinsky district, Dmitrovsky district, Zvenigorod district.

Topographic maps

Year of topographic survey: 1785 - 1792

Description:

The maps are detailed, not topographical, these are the very first detailed maps in the history of cartography, the relief is perfectly depicted on the plans, small objects, villages, hamlets, hamlets are marked, mills, graveyards, etc. are indicated, these are the best maps for searching for coins and relics .
The following counties of this province are available:
Bogorodsky district scale 2 versts in inches (1 cm - 840 m),
Bronnitsky district scale 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m) - 500 rubles,
Bronnitsky district scale 2 versts in inches (1 cm - 840 m),
Vereisky district scale 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m),
Volokolamsk district scale 2 versts per inch (1 cm - 840 m),
Voskresensky district scale 2 versts in inches (1 cm - 840 m),
Dmitrovsky district scale 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m),
Dmitrevsky district scale 2 versts in inches (1 cm - 840 m),
Zvenigorod district scale 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m),
Zvenigorod district scale 2 versts in inch (1 cm - 840 m),
Klinsky district scale 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m),
Kolomna district scale 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m),
Kolomna district scale 2 versts in inch (1 cm - 840 m),
Mozhaisk district scale 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m),
Mozhaisk district scale 2 versts in inches (1 cm - 840 m),
Moscow district scale 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m),
Moscow district scale 2 versts in inches (1 cm - 840 m),
Nikitsky district scale 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m) - 500 rubles,
Nikitsky district scale 2 versts in inches (1 cm - 840 m),
Podolsk district scale 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m),
Ruza district scale 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m),
Ruza district scale 2 versts in inches (1 cm - 840 m),
Serpukhov district scale is 1 verst in inch (1 cm - 420 m).

1. Collection of topographic materials in Moscow. Lip.

Description:

1. German map 1939 Moscow region, continuous coverage, color, with bindings for ozi. Fragment.
2. Operational topographic map of the Moscow region. 1942 kilometers with reference to gps_ozi. Fragment of the map.
3. An interesting map of the Moscow province in 1614., colored, colorful. Print it out and hang it on the wall.
4. Map of the Moscow province 1927, 5 km in 1 cm. Map fragment.

Year of topographic survey: 1765-1792

Scale: 1:126000

Description:

Includes all districts of the Moscow province, which reflect the situation of 1765-1792, collected as a result of processing many plans for general land surveying of 1765-1792. Sample card. Fragment of map descriptions. Compilation sheet of map.
All counties are available, with detailed descriptions: Bogorodsky, Vereisky, Volokolamsky, Voskresensky, Dmitrovsky, Zvenigorodsky, Klinsky, Kolomensky, Mozhaysky, Moscow, Nikitsky, Podolsky, Ruzsky, Serpukhov. The maps coincide with the original general survey maps.
The map is very convenient, unlike the prototypes (general survey plans).

5. Map of the Moscow province from the atlas of 1827.

Year of topographic survey: 1843

Description:

The maps are not very detailed; they are well suited for historians, local historians and treasure hunters for determining the boundaries of counties. large villages and churches are indicated. Color map from the atlas of 32 provinces, map appendix: coat of arms of the province. Sample map.

8. Map of the Moscow province 1856.

11. Topographic map of 1860. New edition.

12. Topographic map of the Moscow province I.A. Strelbitsky 1865-1871

Year of topographic survey: 1865-1871

Scale: 10 versts in an inch 1:420,000 (1 cm - 4.2 km).

Description:

On this map there are currently disappeared settlements, farms, villages and hamlets, all roads, inns, taverns, springs and wells as well as mosques and churches are indicated, one of the best maps for a cop.
The Moscow province includes sheets 43, 57, 58. Fragment of the map. Collection sheet.

14. Map of the German Army 1941 - 1942.

Year of topographic survey: 1941 - 1942

Scale: 1:100 000

Description:

Topographic map of the German Army 1941 - 1942.
Includes districts of the Moscow, Kaluga and Tula regions.
The quality is average, but you can read the map.
German positions are shown on the map.
Collection sheet.

Year of topographic survey: 1925 - 1945

Scale: 1:100 000

Description:

Topographic maps of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army 1925 - 1945.
The map shows the positions of our troops and enemy troops (units, combat positions).
Detailed maps with all villages and farmsteads (including those destroyed during the Second World War), mills, crossings, churches, factories and other small objects.
There are only 53 sheets for the entire region.

They are a source of invaluable information. But researching old maps and searching for them often raises many difficulties and questions. In this article we will try to answer some of them.

The principle of researching old topographic maps is simple: you need to try to find as many of them as possible for the area under study and compare the old maps found with corresponding modern topographic maps to identify any changes. These days, you don't necessarily have to go to a library or archive to look for old maps. Electronic copies of most topographic maps can be easily found in various electronic libraries and websites. But, nevertheless, sometimes finding an old map is quite a difficult task, especially if you are looking for detailed maps, for example, old county maps at a scale of 1 or 2 versts in English inches.

Before you start searching for old maps of the area you are exploring, you need to know that:

1) Topography, a relatively young science. The compilation of detailed topographic maps of the provinces and districts of the Russian Empire began at the beginning of the 19th century. Therefore, you should not waste time searching for detailed topographic maps of the 18th century and earlier.

2) First of all, topographic surveys were carried out on the border territories of the Empire and its densely populated central regions. Therefore, finding old maps of the northern, eastern and other sparsely populated areas of our country is very difficult.

3) Governorates and regions have undergone significant territorial changes over the centuries. Therefore, it is extremely important to study the history of the area you are studying, and it is necessary to find an answer to the question: which counties and provinces (regions) did this territory belong to and in what years?

Start by exploring the area under study by viewing small-scale maps and atlases of the Russian Empire, for example:

If, after reading the historical information about the province, you were unable to determine which district the territory under study belongs to, then by superimposing the above maps on modern ones you can always find out.

Now, after we have found out which district and province the territory we were exploring was part of, we can begin to search for detailed maps.

What kind of old cards are there?

During the 19th century, topographic surveys were carried out across almost the entire territory of the European part of the Russian Empire, the results of which resulted in detailed topographic maps that are best suited for your research. Finding such old maps will not be difficult, since a huge number of Internet sites sell them or give the right to download them for free. A number of such cards are also presented on our website. Let's list some of them.

General survey plans

The oldest among detailed maps are. General survey plans were drawn up on a scale of 1-2 versts in English inches in the period from 1766 to 1861. During this period, plans were drawn up for 35 provinces. Basically, these are the central regions of our country. The plans were drawn without a single mathematical basis; they lack a coordinate grid. Therefore, despite their detailed scale, working with these maps is the most difficult, and in some places their quality leaves much to be desired.

Maps of Mende

General survey plans served as the basis for other old maps. These are the so-called Mende maps, named after Lieutenant General Alexander Ivanovich Mende, who led joint topographic surveys of the land survey department and the corps of military topographers in the period from 1849 to 1866. Based on the results of the surveys, survey atlases and maps of eight provinces of the Russian Empire were published: Tver, Ryazan, Tambov, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Simbirsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Penza provinces. Mende maps, as well as general survey plans, were drawn up on a scale of 1 or 2 versts in English inches, but unlike them, they have a coordinate grid and are more accurate.

Military topographic maps

Among old maps, military topographic maps occupy a special place. It is worth noting that in Russia in the 19th century, direct field (topographic) surveys were carried out by officers of the Corps of Military Topographers, and the collection, storage and publication of maps was carried out by the Military Topographic Depot. With this procedure, it was possible to achieve systematic topographic surveys, built on a scientific basis (on a network of geodetic reference points). Therefore, military topographic maps are distinguished by their uniformity, accuracy and detail.

The following military topographic maps are the most famous:

• Two-verst topographic map of the Moscow province. The basis is based on topographic instrumental surveys of the Moscow province, carried out by officers of the Corps of Military Topographers in 1838-1839 and 1852-1853. The map is published on 40 sheets on a scale of 2 versts per inch.
• Three-verst military topographic map, which covers almost all the provinces of the European part of Russia, with the exception of Moscow, and has more than 600 sheets. Despite the fact that the lieutenant general did not participate in the compilation and publication of this map, novice researchers of old maps mistakenly call it the Schubert map.
• Schubert's ten-verst map ().
• Map of Strelbitsky. Due to the outdated data of Schubert's map, in the mid-19th century there was an urgent need for a more detailed and modern map of the European part of Russia. Therefore, in November 1865, the compilation and engraving of a new special map of all European Russia began, already under the editorship of the General Staff of Captain Strelbitsky. The new one was a huge cartographic publication on 152 sheets and covered an area much larger than half of all of Europe.

Old maps of the Asian part of Russia

As you may have noticed, among the above topographic maps there are no detailed old maps of the Asian part of Russia. This is due, firstly, to the fact that these territories were sparsely populated and studied, and, secondly, they were remote from the Western borders of the Empire and therefore were of no interest to the Military Topographical Depot, whose main purpose was to provide reliable maps War Ministry.

Therefore, for many territories of the Asian part of Russia, maps with a scale of 20 versts in inches or more are the only old maps, such as:

• General map of Western Siberia with the Kyrgyz steppe, 1848

Nevertheless, for some areas of the Asian part of Russia there are also more detailed old maps:

• Road map along the rivers of Western Siberia: Ture, Tobol, Irtysh, Ob and Tom, 1884.

Other old maps of provinces and districts of the Russian Empire

In addition to the listed topographic maps, which are widely used on the Internet, there are other old maps that you can use in your work. Such maps were compiled to meet the needs of various government organizations: the postal department, provincial statistical bureaus, provincial zemstvos and others. The search for such old maps is especially difficult, since mention of them is not found in all catalogs and reference publications, so most often the discovery of such maps occurs by chance in various historical sources. For example, as applications, old maps are available in some lists of populated places, military reviews and other statistical publications.

An example is the following old maps:

• Postal map of Asian Russia and Siberia, published in 1871 by the Postal Department.

  1872 The publication contains a description of all topographical and cartographic work carried out by the corps of military topographers.

  On our website you can Russian Empire.

  Good luck with your research!

I think there is no need to tell you what importance maps have in finding coins and treasures. The success of most events depends on their presence or absence. If in the old days the simple desire to get out into the fields was quite enough, now the situation has changed radically. All more or less well-known tracts, yes, even those completely lost in forests and steppes, turned out to be quite thoroughly cleaned for ancient finds.
To continue to expand your collection or simply enjoy being a cop, you have to increasingly demonstrate remarkable abilities in the field of finding untrodden places. In this matter, the most important role is played by maps of bygone centuries.

Currently, many of them are available to anyone, but as the advertisement says, they are not all equally useful. Yes, that’s true, most of them are only suitable for planning trips to selected places.

Below we will tell you what types of cards there are, reveal their features and characterize them from the point of view of their usefulness in business.

General Survey Plan - PGM (1780-1830)

Topographic materials began to be actively created under Peter I, at which time a large number of geographical atlases of the empire saw the light. During the reign of Catherine II, these works were continued. They, like Peter’s, were also not particularly accurate, but, nevertheless, they still conveyed the necessary and necessary information.

It was under Catherine the Great that the process of mass land surveying began. Its essence was as follows - the entire territory of the country was divided into counties, which in turn consisted of so-called dacha plans, which were nothing more than plots of owners (allotments) who had confirmed rights to them and established boundaries. All of them received numbers; to decipher them, an additional Economic Note was later issued for the land survey plans.
These publications can hardly be called maps, because... They are still far from accurate and look more like diagrams and drawings. But still, from them you can get a lot of useful information on the emergence or existence of a particular settlement in those days.

Maps of Mende (1849-1866)

The names of these, and subsequently many other maps, were given by the names of the people who made the greatest contribution to their development and creation. All of them were based on and had the basis of publications created under Catherine and Paul I; it was on these undertakings that the further development of the much-needed, in primarily for the military, modern maps.
New realities of that time revealed the need to create more accurate and detailed maps than the existing Military Road 40-verst publications. Taking the PGM as a basis and conducting large-scale cartographic surveys, military topographers under the leadership of A.I. The Mende began to create new detailed publications.

A total of two varieties were released.:

— one-verst, scale 1 inch equals 1 verst or 1cm equals 420m

- two-verst, scale is 1 inch 2 versts or 1cm 840m.

Such detailed publications appeared in 8 provinces, although surveys of the area were carried out in 21 provinces over 17 years.

Provinces

1 and 2 versts - Tverskaya, Vladimirskaya, Ryazanskaya, Penza, Simbirskaya and Tambovskaya.
1 verst - Nizhny Novgorod and Penza.

Schubert maps (1860-1870)

Under the leadership of F.F. Schubert, who headed the Corps of Military Topographers at the beginning of the 19th century, a 10-mile map of the Western part of the Russian Empire was created on 60 sheets. But it, like the border 4- and 5-verst points, turned out to be not very convenient, so work soon began on another.
The new map, a three-layout map, was first created under the leadership of Major General P. A. Tuchkov (until 1851), and then work continued with the participation of Schubert. The period of its creation covers the second half of the 19th century, starting in 1846.
Scale - 1 inch is 3 versts or 1260m in 1 cm.

The main part of the work was done before 1863 (435 sheets), later the work was not suspended (in 1886 - 508 sheets), but basically it came down to adding and clarifying previous editions.
They contained cartographic material for all provinces of the European part of the empire (with the exception of Moscow) and parts of the adjacent territories (Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the Baltic states).
This map is distinguished by good detail, showing the type of relief and the nature of the area: forest, swamp, rivers and streams, bridges, crossings, etc. It contains all significant objects, from city maps to villages indicating the number of courtyards, churches, mills, field and forest roads.

When using these materials, it is worth remembering two important features:

1) The accuracy of marking various objects has some error, for example, for the most significant ones it can range from 50 to 200m, for others - from 100 to 500m, and sometimes more.

2) When designating villages, it was customary to subdivide them by size using font; the names of large villages (20 or more households) were written in normal font, small villages and hamlets in italics.

Maps of Strelbitsky

Since 1865 I.A. Strelbitsky, who at that time was part of the military topographic department at the General Staff, was tasked with updating and supplementing the Special Map of the European Part of Russia. Under his leadership, work continued from 1865 to 1871. The publication consisted of 178 pages and covered the provinces located in the center of the country, as well as parts of the adjacent western and southern territories.

Scale: 1 inch is 10 versts or 1cm is 4200m.

Subsequently, it served as the basis for the creation of similar publications until the mid-20th century.

Red Army

These cards are abbreviated as the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. These works have been published since the 20s of the 20th century. Of course, for the most part they were based on publications published before the 1917 revolution (mostly layouts were used) and covered primarily the Western regions of the country. They were published from 1925 to 1941. Scale - from 250m to 5km.

They were produced with a number of additions and improvements, so they were actively used during the Second World War.
These maps are characterized by very clear detail and detail; they display all the roads, including the smallest settlements, indicating the number of households, and other objects of interest from the point of view of military tactics. The vast majority of sheets are made in color, but there are also black and white options.
Their usefulness is certainly high, due to the fact that many villages disappeared immediately or some time after the end of the war.

General Staff

From the name it is clear that they were produced for military needs, although they were also used by other services, for example, geodetic, topographical, geological, etc. These include publications released after the Second World War, which again represent improved and modified previous maps. They all have the same shape - the territory is divided into sheets, each of them in turn is divided into squares.
Initially, they were considered secret and it was almost impossible to get them in Soviet times. Now many (not all) of them are available for use.
Taking into account the fact that the General Staff has a significantly smaller error relative to the coordinate grid, it makes sense to use them (in the absence of old ones) to search for areas and plan travel routes.

The scale of such maps is very diverse, ranging from 500 meters to 10 kilometers.

In addition to the above cards, of course, there are many other interesting ones. For example, in the 19th century, many provinces published their own governor’s maps; many search engines also enjoyed great success with German (KDWR), Polish (WIG), which are essentially redrawn Russian layouts.

All maps can be used literally, so to speak, but if you can find at least something from the Soviet General Staff (at least villages that existed after the war), then from verst maps it is much more difficult to do this, they require reference to the area. This is done using special programs, and then the processed materials are loaded into the navigator.

Filming of the area taken tens and even hundreds of years ago is the history of our country. They will provide invaluable assistance not only to amateurs, but also to those who simply love to travel, study their region, its origins and development, and those who simply want to know the origins of their family.

This is a kind of time machine, and therefore a source of invaluable information. When working with old topographic maps, the main principle of research is undoubtedly comparative. As many old maps of the study area as possible are found and compared with corresponding topographic maps of today to identify any changes. In order to find in our time, in the era of Internetization, old maps there is no longer an urgent need to run headlong to libraries and archives - the electronic version of most of them can be seen on various Internet sites. However, finding detailed maps, such as old county maps at a 1 mile English inch scale, can be quite a task. Therefore, in the search, and in the very process of studying maps, various questions often arise. The purpose of this article is to highlight the most common of them.

What is important to know before you start looking for old maps?

1. Do not try to find detailed topographic maps of counties and provinces of the Russian Empire dating from the 18th century and earlier. Such maps began to be compiled only at the beginning of the last century. Topography, in principle, is considered a relatively young science.

2. Due to the fact that topographic surveys first began to be carried out in the border territories and densely populated areas of the central regions of the Empire, it is not surprising that it will be extremely difficult to find old maps of the eastern or northern territories, as well as sparsely populated ones.

3. Over the centuries, provinces and regions have undergone significant territorial changes. Therefore, it will be very useful to study the history of the area under study (here it is important to find out: when and which provinces and districts it was part of). To begin with, it is better to familiarize yourself with small-scale atlases and maps of the Russian Empire. The best option would be to opt for the Atlas of the Russian Empire (dating from 1792), the Geographical Atlas of the Russian Empire (compiled in 1820-1827) and the Detailed Atlas of the Russian Empire with plans of the main cities (published in 1871). Read the historical information about the province. If after this there are still doubts about which county to assign this or that territory to, compare the above and modern maps by overlaying them on each other.

What types of old maps are there?

In the 19th century, topographic surveys became widespread in the Russian Empire, and by the end of the century, almost its entire European part was shown on detailed topographic maps. For research, such maps are an indispensable assistant. There are a huge number of sites on the Internet that make it possible to purchase these (and many other) cards, both for a fee and for free. General survey plans are the oldest among them.