Old maps for a treasure hunter. What are the best places to look for and dig for coins? What are the best antique maps to use to find Mende coins online?

Attention to non-residential properties. It happens that when starting to work with maps, some seekers who have just joined our hobby focus exclusively on populated areas, losing sight of the most interesting objects for exploration, for example, bridges, crossings, etc.

But often in the immediate vicinity of the same crossing there was also housing, and not indicated anywhere. A gatehouse, a house (two, three), or simply a place once favored by people to rest on the road: a hollow, a mound, a clearing in the forest. There can be many options, so it doesn’t hurt to “turn on” your imagination.

Additional materials. Additional materials such as: economic notes for the map, well, let's say to PGM. Having acquired such extras. materials, you will have the opportunity to collect a lot of useful information about a specific settlement and will be able to more vividly and fully imagine the life, wealth, and occupations of those people who once inhabited the settlement you are researching. In fact, there are a lot of documents useful to a search engine, and in order to find some of them there is no need to even go to the archive. Sometimes it’s enough to rummage around on the Internet, at least this will help you decide on the direction of your search, that is, understand what exactly you need.

Now about what types of cards there are. Let me cite, as an example, several, although well-known for a long time, that nevertheless still arouse interest among search engines for ancient maps. To my considerable surprise, from communicating with guys I accidentally met on the field, who had recently become interested in instrument searching, it turned out that they had no idea about any maps at all, they had only heard about the gene. headquarters

General survey maps (GLM) - not yet topographical (without indicating latitude and longitude), maps of counties from the late 18th century, after the redistribution of borders in 1775-78. Under Paul 1, the boundaries of the provinces were changed, and Alexander 1, who reigned after him, returned the borders to their original place, but with some changes; unfortunately, some of the maps of the General Land Survey fund were preserved only for this period. The results of the survey were plans for the general survey of districts of 35 provinces of the Russian Empire. PGMs of counties, as a rule, consist of several parts and they were drawn by hand at one time. The maps contain many small details and objects. Sadly, some parts have reached us with significant losses, but, in any case, they are very interesting and it is precisely the PGM that leaves us the space to use our own imagination. Of course, they are in the public domain and not the originals, but the photos are sold. One-layout survey on a scale of 1 inch = 1 verst or 1 cm = 420 m; two-layout survey on a scale of 1 inch = 2 versts or 1 cm = 840 m.

Map of Mende A.I.

Maps of Mende are already topographical (indicating latitudes and longitudes); over 17 years, surveys covered an area of ​​345,000 square meters. versts The work was based on materials from the General Survey. This work was carried out using the method of semi-instrumental photography. The maps are made on a scale of 1 inch = 1 verst or 1 cm = 420 m; 1 inch = 2 versts or 1 cm. = 840 m.

In total, eight published provinces are known: Tver, Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Penza, Simbirsk, Tambov.

The work was carried out by a corps of military topographers.

Map of European Russia I.A. Strelbitsky.

This map is one of the main works of the famous Russian topographer, General Staff Lieutenant General of the Infantry I.A. Strelbitsky.

A “Special Map of European Russia” was published by the military topographic department of the main headquarters, edited by Strelbitsky; The map is made on a scale of 10 versts per inch, consists of 178 sheets and includes not only the European possessions of Russia.

A map of European Russia, compiled on the basis of the provision on the liberation of peasants from serfdom, on February 19, 1861, and published with the special permission of the State Council for a visual explanation of the largest and smallest mental allotments in all regions of Russia.

Of course, it’s not such a detailed map, but sometimes it can be useful.

Composite map and sample map of Strelbitsky.

As mentioned above, here are the most famous and easily accessible maps of the Russian Empire. In reality, there are much more of them, not to mention maps of the USSR General Staff And maps of the Red Army. There are also quite interesting “Hans” maps from the Second World War.

One more thing, when comparing Soviet or modern maps with ancient ones, do not forget - a mile and a kilometer are not the same thing. And other length measures do not correspond to modern ones.

In general, the ability to read a topographic map will never be superfluous. This is really very convenient: you compare a map of the 18th century with a map of the 19th century, observe the changes, then make a comparison with maps of the USSR, and only then superimpose all this on a satellite image.

It will be especially useful to work with maps for those who are just starting their search activities. In any case, it will certainly reduce the number of idle trips.

Buyan-field - Flat, elevated place, open on all sides
Vzlobok - A small steep hill.
Veres - Juniper.
Volok (Volok) - Forest or forest clearing
Vspolye - The edge of the field, pasture.
Vyselok (Vyselok) - A small village, predominantly owned, located near single-patrimonial villages.
Greatest - Greatest, highest, highest.
City (G.) - A fortified or walled village. Management status assigned to a volost, district or provincial in relation to other settlements.
Griva - An oblong hill covered with forest.
Village - A village without a church, whose inhabitants are mainly peasants from various departments and live without a landowner.
Right hand - Right hand.
Dresva - Coarse sand.
Zapan - Backwater or river bay.
Zaseka (Zas.) - Defensive structure. It was a combination of dead wood apices, an earthen rampart and a ditch with forts and separate fortresses. The fortifications served as defensive lines that protected against raids by the Golden Horde, who systematically plundered and destroyed Russian cities and villages and took the population into captivity, as well as to protect roads.
Zybun (Zyb.) - A quagmire, an impassable (disastrous) place.
Koshevnik - Wood timber floated down the river.
Cumulus sands (Cumulus) - Accumulations of loose sand around bushes and shrubs... Height 30-50 cm, less often up to 1-2 m. In places they consist of gravel. They usually form in areas with close groundwater - on salt marshes, the coasts of lakes, seas and rivers.
Lying meadow - Worthless, bad meadow.
Monastery, monastery (Mon.) - These consist of various types of monastic hostels, the latter of which sometimes coincide in their meaning with graveyards or estates of the spiritual department.
Grange (m. or Grange) - If it is owned, then most of it is near single-patrimonial villages, or it has the meaning of an estate at a plant and factory, if it belongs to persons of the tax-paying classes.
Myanda - Pine.
Novina - Cleared but not plowed land in the forest.
Dump (Opt.) - A mound of waste rock, slag, formed during the development of mineral resources.
Oselok - Oselok Vlad. wasteland, a place abandoned by its inhabitants; fallow, lie low. Oselok, Oblesye, Oselok or obselye, psk. hard newly populated place, settlement, new settlements, settlement.
Oselye - Oselye is akin to an outskirts, the land around the village.
Perekop - Ditch.
Tares - Weed
Pogost (Pog. or Pogost) - Has a church and a population consisting of clergy and clergy. The word graveyard comes from the word guest. The place where merchants traded was called a graveyard. With the adoption of Christianity, churches began to be built near graveyards. In the 15-16th centuries. churchyards begin to die off, hence the word graveyard has a second meaning - a lonely church.
Undercut (Under.) - A cleared place in the forest.
Disgrace - Review, watch.
Midnight - North.
Posad (P. or Pos.) - An order of huts or a row of houses. A settled settlement located outside a city or fortress.
Pochinok, village and farm (Poch.) - Same as settlement. Farmsteads, however, often have the significance of estates due to their agricultural nature. New settlements arising on the first raised site were called repairs. When the original courtyard was replaced by one or two others, it became a village.
Wasteland (Pust.) - A village turned into a wasteland if there were no residential courtyards left in it and the arable land was abandoned.
Selishche - A large village or settlement where there is more than one church.
Village (S.) - A village with a church, whose inhabitants are mainly peasants from different departments.
Seltso (Sel.) - A village of an exclusively proprietary nature with a manor house and various landlord establishments, or a village in which a landowner lives with peasants or several landowners. A village that was previously a village may also have the name.
Sloboda, Forshtat (Slob.) - A village with more than one church, a settlement outside a city or fortress.
Thorn - Prickly bush
Estate (Us.) - They are of two kinds. Estates of the ecclesiastical department are similar in character to graveyards by the nature of the population. Owner's estates differ either in their agricultural nature or as the location of landowners at a factory or plant
Shuitsa - Left hand.
Church land (CL) - A plot of land belonging to a church parish or monastery

Buyan-field - Flat, elevated place, open on all sides
Vzlobok - A small steep hill.
Veres - Juniper.
Volok (Volok) - Forest or forest clearing
Vspolye - The edge of the field, pasture.
Vyselok (Vyselok) - A small village, predominantly owned, located near single-patrimonial villages.
Greatest - Greatest, highest, highest.
City (G.) - A fortified or walled village. Management status assigned to a volost, district or provincial in relation to other settlements.
Griva - An oblong hill covered with forest.
Village - A village without a church, whose inhabitants are mainly peasants from various departments and live without a landowner.
Right hand - Right hand.
Dresva - Coarse sand.
Zapan - Backwater or river bay.
Zaseka (Zas.) - Defensive structure. It was a combination of dead wood apices, an earthen rampart and a ditch with forts and separate fortresses. The fortifications served as defensive lines that protected against raids by the Golden Horde, who systematically plundered and destroyed Russian cities and villages and took the population into captivity, as well as to protect roads.
Zybun (Zyb.) - A quagmire, an impassable (disastrous) place.
Koshevnik - Wood timber floated down the river.
Cumulus sands (Cumulus) - Accumulations of loose sand around bushes and shrubs... Height 30-50 cm, less often up to 1-2 m. In places they consist of gravel. They usually form in areas with close groundwater - on salt marshes, the coasts of lakes, seas and rivers.
Lying meadow - Worthless, bad meadow.
Monastery, monastery (Mon.) - These consist of various types of monastic hostels, the latter of which sometimes coincide in their meaning with graveyards or estates of the spiritual department.
Grange (m. or Grange) - If it is owned, then most of it is near single-patrimonial villages, or it has the meaning of an estate at a plant and factory, if it belongs to persons of the tax-paying classes.
Myanda - Pine.
Novina - Cleared but not plowed land in the forest.
Dump (Opt.) - A mound of waste rock, slag, formed during the development of mineral resources.
Oselok - Oselok Vlad. wasteland, a place abandoned by its inhabitants; fallow, lie low. Oselok, Oblesye, Oselok or obselye, psk. hard newly populated place, settlement, new settlements, settlement.
Oselye - Oselye is akin to an outskirts, the land around the village.
Perekop - Ditch.
Tares - Weed
Pogost (Pog. or Pogost) - Has a church and a population consisting of clergy and clergy. The word graveyard comes from the word guest. The place where merchants traded was called a graveyard. With the adoption of Christianity, churches began to be built near graveyards. In the 15-16th centuries. churchyards begin to die off, hence the word graveyard has a second meaning - a lonely church.
Undercut (Under.) - A cleared place in the forest.
Disgrace - Review, watch.
Midnight - North.
Posad (P. or Pos.) - An order of huts or a row of houses. A settled settlement located outside a city or fortress.
Pochinok, village and farm (Poch.) - Same as settlement. Farmsteads, however, often have the significance of estates due to their agricultural nature. New settlements arising on the first raised site were called repairs. When the original courtyard was replaced by one or two others, it became a village.
Wasteland (Pust.) - A village turned into a wasteland if there were no residential courtyards left in it and the arable land was abandoned.
Selishche - A large village or settlement where there is more than one church.
Village (S.) - A village with a church, whose inhabitants are mainly peasants from different departments.
Seltso (Sel.) - A village of an exclusively proprietary nature with a manor house and various landlord establishments, or a village in which a landowner lives with peasants or several landowners. A village that was previously a village may also have the name.
Sloboda, Forshtat (Slob.) - A village with more than one church, a settlement outside a city or fortress.
Thorn - Prickly bush
Estate (Us.) - They are of two kinds. Estates of the ecclesiastical department are similar in character to graveyards by the nature of the population. Owner's estates differ either in their agricultural nature or as the location of landowners at a factory or plant
Shuitsa - Left hand.
Church land (CL) - A plot of land belonging to a church parish or monastery

, Russian empire

Alexander Ivanovich Mende (Mendt, 1798 or 1800 - ) - Russian lieutenant general, cartographer. He served in the Caucasus, then in the cartographic department, and later managed a widow's house and the educational part of Moscow institutes. Under the supervision of Mende (based on the encyclopedia), topographical boundary atlases of the Tver, Ryazan and Tambov provinces were compiled.

He was educated at the St. Petersburg Gymnasium. In 1813 he was enlisted as a column leader in the Retinue of His Imperial Majesty. In 1813-1821 was engaged in topographic survey of the territory of Finland.

In 1824 he was sent to the headquarters of the 2nd Army. In 1825 he was promoted to staff captain.

Since 1845 - head of military survey of the Vitebsk province.

In 1847, he was appointed to assist the boundary department to supervise cartographic work during the delimitation of provinces.

In 1847-1866. headed large-scale topographic and cartographic work in the central provinces of Russia, organized by the Military Topographic Depot of the General Staff, the Land Survey Department and the Russian Geographical Society to correct land survey atlases. In 1856, for distinguished service, he was promoted to lieutenant general.

He was married to Elizaveta Antonovna Hoffman" (11/14/1818 - 05/18/1870). Their children: Nikolai (1844), Vladimir (1849), Natalya (1849), Lydia (1852).

The Mende couple are buried in Moscow at the German Cemetery.

Some evidence

Recognition of the merits of Mende A.I. is the anniversary medal “In memory of the fiftieth anniversary of the Corps of Military Topographers. 1872". This medal bears the names of 81 people who headed the Russian military topographic service until 1872 or who glorified it with their creative achievements. The sequence of surnames is not alphabetical, but by merit.

Correction of provincial atlases

Under his leadership, the “Topographic boundary atlas of the Tver province” (v. 1-12, 1853-57; scale 1:84,000), the “Topographic boundary atlas of the Ryazan province” (1860), as well as maps of the Ryazan and Tambov provinces (over 1 thousand sheets in total).

For his “zeal and labor” in compiling maps of the Tver province, M. was awarded the highest favor in 1850.

His name is associated with extensive work, called “Mende surveys,” organized by the Russian Geographical Society, the Military Topographic Depot of the General Staff and the Land Survey Department to correct land survey atlases.

A. I. Mende from 1847 to 1866 supervised topographical and cartographic work in the central provinces of Russia.

Until the stage of publication of the atlas of the Tver province in 1853, the head of the work was referred to as A. I. Mendt. A similar spelling is present in the materials of the “A. I. Mende Foundation” Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA), as well as in other sources.

The report for 1849, which was published in the Notes of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society (IRGS), analyzes the progress of work to correct provincial boundary atlases. The information of the IRGO by the Minister of Justice in March 1848 is noted.

« that the Minister of War, having ascertained the success of the work carried out by Major General Mendt, ... presented to the Sovereign Emperor a most humble report on the continuation of this state work by the combined forces of the General Staff and the Boundary Department.”

Based on the results of the report, the Emperor allowed the work to continue

To carry out the work, it was decided to increase the number of surveyors from 36 to 40, and the number of officers of the Topographer Corps from 4 to 8.

The corrected atlas of the Tver Province was published in 1853, its materials were discussed at the general meeting of the IRGO on 04/09/1853:

Alexander Ivanovich Mende (Mendt) was awarded the orders: St. Anne, 3rd class. (1823), St. Vladimir 4th Art. (1826), St. Anne 2nd Art. (May 1829), St. Anne 2nd Art. with crown (December 1829), St. Stanislaus 3rd Art. (1832), St. George 4th Art. (1841), St. Vladimir 3rd Art. (1849), St. Stanislaus 1st Art. (1852), St. Anne 1st Art. (1856).

In this article you will learn what abbreviations and symbols were used on old Mende maps.
Mende Alexander Ivanovich for 17 years he conducted surveys and created topographic maps of some Russian provinces on a scale of 1 inch = 1 verst or 1 cm = 420 m; 1 inch = 2 versts or 1 cm = 840 m

Abbreviations on the map

Buyan-field- Flat, elevated area, open on all sides
Outrageous- A small steep hill.
Veres- Juniper.
Volok (Volok)- Forest or forest clearing
Vspolye- Edge of the field, pasture.
Vyselok (Vys.)- A small village, predominantly owned, located near single-patrimonial villages.
Great- Largest, highest, highest.
City (G.)- A fortified or walled village. Management status assigned to a volost, district or provincial in relation to other settlements.
Mane- An oblong hill covered with forest.
Village- A village without a church, whose inhabitants are mainly peasants from various departments and live without a landowner.
Right hand- Right hand.
Dresva- Coarse sand.
Zapan- Backwater or river bay.
Zaseka (Zas.)- Defensive structure. It was a combination of dead wood apices, an earthen rampart and a ditch with forts and separate fortresses. The fortifications served as defensive lines that protected against raids by the Golden Horde, who systematically plundered and destroyed Russian cities and villages and took the population into captivity, as well as to protect roads.
Zybun (Zyb.)- A quagmire, an impassable (disastrous) place.
Koshevnik- Wood timber floated down the river.
Cumulus sands (Cumulus)- Accumulations of loose sand around bushes and shrubs... Height 30-50 cm, less often up to 1-2 m. In some places they consist of gravel. They usually form in areas with close groundwater - on salt marshes, the coasts of lakes, seas and rivers.
Lying Meadow- Worthless, bad meadow.
Monastery, monastery (Mon.)- There are various types of monastic hostels, of which the latter sometimes coincide in their meaning with graveyards or estates of the spiritual department.
Manor (m. or Manor)- If it is owned, then most of it is near single-patrimonial villages, or it has the meaning of an estate at a plant or factory, if it belongs to persons of the tax-paying classes.
Myanda- Pine.
Novina- Cleared but not plowed land in the forest.
Dump (Op.)- A mound of waste rock, slag, formed during mining.
Touchstone- Oselok Vlad. wasteland, a place abandoned by its inhabitants; fallow, lie low. Oselok, Oblesye, Oselok or obselye, psk. hard newly populated place, settlement, new settlements, settlement.
Oselye- Oselye is akin to an outskirts, the land around the village.
Perekop- Ditch.
Tares- Weed
Pogost (Pog. or Pogost)- Has a church and a population consisting of clergy and clergy. The word graveyard comes from the word guest. The place where merchants traded was called a graveyard. With the adoption of Christianity, churches began to be built near graveyards. In the 15-16th centuries. churchyards begin to die off, hence the word graveyard has a second meaning - a lonely church.
Undercut (Under.)- A cleared place in the forest.
Disgrace- Review, watch.
Midnight- North.
Posad (P. or Pos.)- An order of huts or a row of houses. A settled settlement located outside a city or fortress.
Pochinok, village and farm (Poch.)- Same as settlement. Farmsteads, however, often have the significance of estates due to their agricultural nature. New settlements arising on the first raised site were called repairs. When the original courtyard was replaced by one or two others, it became a village.
Wasteland (Desolate)- The village turned into a wasteland if there were no residential courtyards left in it and the arable land was abandoned.
Selishche- A large village or settlement where there is more than one church.
Village (S.)- A village with a church, whose inhabitants are mainly peasants from different departments.
Seltso (Village)- A village of an exclusively property-owning nature with a manor house and various owner-owned establishments, or a village in which a landowner lives with peasants or several landowners. A village that was previously a village may also have the name.
Sloboda, Forshtat (Slob.)- A settlement with more than one church, a settlement outside a city or fortress.
Thorn- Prickly bush
Manor (Ust.)- They are of two kinds. The estates of the ecclesiastical department are similar to graveyards in terms of the nature of the population. Owner's estates differ either in their agricultural nature or as the location of landowners at a factory or plant
Shuytsa- Left hand.
Church land (CZ)- Land plot belonging to a church parish or monastery
If you don't know what the abbreviation is on the map, read our dictionary