Even more Caucasus maps

I found one last book with scan-worthy inlaid maps in my attic archives - Kavkazskii Krai - Putevoditel' (Caucasus Territory - Guidebook) by Sergei Anisimov, from 1928. The book's largest and perhaps most spectacular map - a map of Caucasus tourism routes - is something I'm still trying to stitch together from four digital files, since the original was too big to scan in one piece, even on a large flatbed scanner. But the ones which scanned in easily are still quite lovely and - as with many artifacts of the Caucasus - susceptible to being invested with all kinds of meaning.

Anisimov - Kavkazskii Krai - Cover

The coolest of the maps I was able to scan in would have to be this map of Caucasus transit routes, which bristles with all kinds of quaint station-names, including Tikhoretskaya, a station made famous as the destination of the train in the beautiful and haunting song sung variously by Alla Pugacheva in the classic movie "Irony of Fate" (Ironiia Sud'by) (a subtitled video of the song from the movie, with Barbara Bryl'ska lip-synching to Pugacheva's singing, is at 7:45 of this clip (part of a medley of songs from the movie, the second part of which is here) and a clip of just the song, without subtitles, is here) and by Vladimir Vysotsky.

Kavkazskii Krai - Transit Routes, full-size version here.

[update July 15]

Another interesting thing about this map is that it shows the state of railways in Abkhazia in the 1920s - when there wasn't a single line in the region. Wikipedia has more on the history of Abkhazian rail transport. The rail line through the region has of course has cropped up as a relevant point in the conflict resolution talks (and as the subject of a few interesting online photo essays documenting the crumbling infrastructure) a number of times over the years and has more recently become a convenient excuse for Russia to increase its troop presence in the region.

[/update]

Also of interest is this map of the Caucasus' always controversial ethnography. This 1928 snapshot is the sort of thing that proponents of secession in Abkhazia and South Ossetia like to roll out to verify (perhaps not without justification) that "once upon a time, these lands were ours." Often this is accompanied by the tongue-twisting - and often mind-bendingly employed - word "autochthonous."

Kavkazskii Krai - Ethnographic Map, full-size version here.

This map of the Caucasus' geological zones is perhaps interesting in its own right, but I found the most interesting aspect of it to be that it measures longitude in degrees from Pulkovo.

Kavkazskii Krai - Geological Map, full-size version here.

And I'm including this map of Tbilisi Tiflis mainly because it is a cool-looking, old-timey map, which is ultimately the spirit that motivates much of my map-scanning, although I am sure one could do an interesting analysis of the street names - which ones had already been changed by the Soviets by the late 1920s, which ones would later be changed, etc.

Kavkazskii Krai - Tiflis Map, full-size version here.

See all of the maps I've posted here.