3-004-100 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

General Map of Bessarabia: Showing Postal and Major Roads, Stations and the Distance in Versts between Them, 1821. This 1821 map of Bessarabia is from a larger work, Geograficheskii atlas Rossiiskoi imperii, tsarstva Pol'skogo i velikogo kniazhestva Finliandskogo (Geographical atlas of the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Poland, and the Grand Duchy of Finland), containing 60 maps of the Russian Empire. Compiled and engraved by Colonel V.P. Piadyshev, it reflects the detailed mapping carried out by Russian military cartographers in the first quarter of the 19th century. The map shows population centers (five gradations by size), monasteries, customs houses, postal stations, roads (three types), state and provincial borders, and colonies of German and Polish settlers. Distances are shown in versts, a Russian measure, now no longer used, equal to 1.07 kilometers. Legends and place-names are in Russian and French.