CAN-MHSA-L Archives

From: "Tim Janzen" <>
Subject: maps of Ukraine and Danzig area circa 1920; index to Crimean maps
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2005 10:53:35 -0700

Dear All,
This summer Svetlana Martins in Russia sent me scans of 6 maps that she had
purchased in Moscow. The maps were published by the cartography department
of the Russian military topography corps in Moscow between 1919 and 1921.
These maps were apparently part of a series that covered all of Ukraine and
probably all of Russia and eastern Europe. One map (Map #34) covers the
portion of Crimea located west of Eupatoria. A second map (Map #48) covers
the area around Berislav, including the Molotschna Colony. The third map
(Map #49) covers the portion of Crimea east of Eupatoria and north almost to
Ischun. A fourth map (Map #47) covers the area around Ekaterinoslav
(Dnepropetrovsk), including the Chortitza Colony. A fifth map (Map #33)
covers the area north of the Black Sea between Odessa and Kherson. A sixth
map covers the area south and west of Danzig, Prussia. These maps were
drawn at a scale of 1:420,000 and are written in Russian. Judii Rempel has
graciously placed the scans of the maps in various formats on the MHSA web
site at http://www.mennonites.ca/mhsa/projects/geography/index.html so that
interested researchers may download them.
As I was reviewing the maps of Crimea I began to note that there were a
number of Mennonite villages on the maps that I had never previously located
on any map. This prompted me to create an index to all the locations in
Crimea from the scans of the three maps that taken together cover all of
Crimea, with the hope of locating additional Mennonite villages. I ended up
locating 22 Mennonite villages on these maps that I had never before seen on
another map. Those villages were Alatsch, Algase-Konrat, Andraewka, Barak,
Burnak, Burnash, Dsanbore, Dselair, Itschki, Kangil, Kara-Kodscha, Makut,
Marienfeld (Yalantusch), Sabantschi, Safronovka, Semisotka, Terkle Kitai,
Tokmak, Tschambuldi, Usnajak, Vassilyevka, and Yapuntchi. I am still
attempting to locate the following Mennonite villages on maps of Crimea:
Arkaschin, Aschaja, Atartschik, (Adartschik), Bachschill, Bakschai, Basul
(Busul), Bubschik, Dschangara, Falantush, Hoffnungsberg, Karakuch,
Kasantschi, Kiat (Kiatt), Kirgis, Kronsgarten, Kutievka, Mara, Salgirka,
Selenaja, Stanislavka, and Tschokmak. If you happen to know the precise
locations of any of these villages I would appreciate it if you would
contact me. Additional information about these villages may be found at
http://www.mennonites.ca/mhsa/projects/geography/1_mennonite_villages.pdf
and at http://www.mennonites.ca/mhsa/projects/geography/4_comp_crimea.html.
When I created the index I tried to transliterate all of the locations
found on the maps from Russian into English. Some of the names are
difficult to read due to a lack of clarity on the original map. This is
particularly the case for the portion of the map that includes the southern
part of Crimea. It is thus probable that some of the names in the index are
misspelled. If you note any locations in the index that are clearly
misspelled please contact me and provide me with the correct spelling. In a
few cases I have modified the spelling of the location to be consistent with
the spelling of that location as found in Dr. Karl Stumpp’s map Die
deutschen Siedlungen auf der Halbinsel Krim, which was published in 1959. I
have not included the names of lakes, rivers, and peninsulas that appear on
the maps. There are also many unnamed chutors that appear on the maps that
I did not include in the index unless they were named. In some cases a
chutor or manor house is located near a village of the same name. In such
cases the name appears in the index twice, once for the chutor and once for
the village.
I have included in the index the approximate latitude and longitude for
each of the 1558 locations as they appear on the original map. In comparing
these maps with other more modern maps of Crimea I have noted that the
longitudes of most locations as shown on these maps are somewhat different
from the longitudes of those locations when they are found on more modern
maps. For instance, the longitude of Simferopol as found on the map used to
create the index is 33 degrees 48 seconds East. However, the longitude of
Simferopol on modern maps is approximately 34 degrees 8 seconds East. It
appears that the cartographers who created these maps generally drew the
longitude lines on the maps approximately 20 seconds east of where they
should have drawn them. Researchers using the approximate longitudes I have
included in the index need to take this into account if they attempt to find
these locations on modern maps. For this reason I have included in the
index a column in which the longitudes of each location have been corrected
by 20 seconds.
The index is organized alphabetically. However, it also includes a "Sort"
column. If you were to sort the entire index by this "Sort" column it would
rearrange the names and put them into the order in which I originally
extracted them. I generally extracted the names from small portions of the
maps at a time starting in the northwest corner of the map and then moving
through the maps extracting names from blocks moving from west to east.
I hope that this index, while not perfect, will be helpful to researchers
attempting to locate obscure villages that don't appear on less detailed
maps of Crimea. I am not aware of any maps from this period that show more
detail than these maps. If you are aware of more detailed maps of Ukraine
that were created prior to 1940 that show more detail than these maps please
contact me about them. If you know where additional maps from this series
are located I would be interested in that information. It would be nice to
have scans of other maps from this series on the MHSA web site. It would
also be nice if someone would create an index to the other maps that I did
not index.
Researchers might also be interested in knowing that more detailed maps of
Ukraine that date between 1972 and 2000 may be found at
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/x-ussr/ukraine.html. I also recommend the
selection of Russian maps found at
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth.html. I very much appreciate
the index to locations in Ukraine that is found at
http://home.arcor.de/pulin/karlswalde/ukr_places_ind.htm and use that index
frequently.

Sincerely,
Tim Janzen
12367 SE Ridgecrest Rd.
Portland, OR 97236
E-mail:
Mennonite genealogy resources web site: http://www.timjanzen.com

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• maps of Ukraine and Danzig area circa 1920; index to Crimean maps by "Tim Janzen" <>