Michurin’s Map of Moscow: How to Read the Numbers, Letters and Zodiac Signs

Michurin’s 1739 plan of Moscow comes with a separate index: numbers, letters and zodiac signs refer to its sections. Together, they show which streets and places the mapmakers marked; this source cannot establish the history of each building or its exact present-day address.

#DocumentOfTheWeek · a weekly feature.

What exactly is this document?

The National Electronic Library catalogue describes the ‘Plan of the Imperial Capital City of Moscow’ as a map dated 1739 with a separate index sheet; a complete copy is held by the Russian State Library. The words ‘under the supervision of’ in the title indicate that the work was overseen by the architect Ivan Michurin; the surveyors who carried out the survey are listed below. A scale of 1:21 000 means that one centimetre on the map represents 210 metres on the ground.

The bottom-right corner of the sheet contains a compass rose and a scale bar: 250 sazhens to the inch. The top of the image points north-north-east, an orientation that must be taken into account when comparing it with a modern map. The scale allows only approximate estimates of distance: eighteenth-century surveying did not provide the accuracy needed to match locations to present-day addresses.

The National Electronic Library gives the Russian State Library shelfmark as Ko 1/VII-17 and the dimensions as follows: a 56×53 cm map plus an index of the same size. The catalogue records that the set is complete and bears a bookplate from P. P. Volkonsky’s library; this note concerns the provenance of this particular copy. Without the explanatory sheet, not all the symbols can be reliably deciphered.

What do the numbers on Michurin’s plan mean?

The numbers refer to sites in the index. It is organised by areas of Moscow — the Kremlin, Kitay-Gorod, Bely Gorod and Zemlyanoy Gorod — and by types of place: churches, monasteries, monastic compounds, public buildings and gates. A number must therefore be looked up in the relevant section, rather than in a single continuous list.

For example, number 23 in the Kremlin denotes ‘Collegia and Chancelleries’, while the same number in Kitay-Gorod marks the Church of St John the Theologian. Number 40 in that same area corresponds to Gostiny Dvor. The mark on the map and the entry in the index together identify the site; without the correct section, the number remains ambiguous.

Why are there letters and zodiac signs on the map?

Streets are marked with Latin letters: beyond Zemlyanoy Gorod, main streets use capitals and secondary streets use lower-case letters. Rivers, ponds and certain other places are assigned zodiac signs: Aquarius denotes the Moskva River, Gemini the Patriarch’s Pond, and Pisces the Yauza. These conventional symbols tell us nothing about the inhabitants’ astrological beliefs.

The letters have their own lookup system. O. V. Shulgina notes that the streets in the various areas of the city, apart from the Kremlin, are listed separately at the end of the explanatory sheet. A building’s number should therefore be checked against the section for its area, and a letter against this street list.

The Kremlin, Kitay-Gorod, Bely Gorod and Zemlyanoy Gorod are labelled by name. To decipher the other markings, the map image should be opened alongside the image of the explanatory sheet.

What does the 1739 plan prove, and what does it not prove?

The plan shows Moscow as its mapmakers depicted it in the first half of the eighteenth century. It shows areas of the city, blocks, rivers and selected buildings. The index preserves the names of the marked places; the scale allows distances to be estimated, but cannot correct the inaccuracies of the original survey.

A number on the map does not reveal when a building was constructed, who owned it or what happened to it later. The National Electronic Library catalogue dates the copy to 1739, while the cartographic scholar O. V. Shulgina dates its publication to 1741. In either case, the date on the plan does not mean that every point was surveyed at that time. Shulgina notes the absence of a coordinate grid: other maps and documents are needed to match a symbol to a present-day address. The index itself covers selected ‘most notable places’, rather than all the city’s buildings.

Follow this sequence: find the symbol on the map, identify the area of the city, then locate its entry on the explanatory sheet. The name you find is evidence from this source; an account of subsequent changes will require other documents.

The old plan of Kitay-Gorod can be compared with the area covered by the ‘Soul of Moscow’ tour of Kitay-Gorod: the route runs from Slavyanskaya Square to Khokhlovka via Ivanovskaya Gorka. The area explored on the walk can be compared with the plan, but a present-day street does not, in itself, prove that its eighteenth-century alignment has remained unchanged. Next week, our ‘Document of the Week’ series will examine another primary source.

Sources

1. National Electronic Library: a complete copy of the 1739 plan of Moscow in the Russian State Library collection
2. Image of the 1739 plan of Moscow
3. Wikimedia Commons: image category for Michurin’s plan and its explanatory sheet
4. Michurin’s 1739 Plan of Moscow: Transcription of the Index and Analysis of the Symbols
5. O. V. Shulgina. Mapping Moscow as a Phenomenon in the History of Russian and International Cartography
6. ‘The Soul of Moscow’ Tour of Kitay-Gorod