About the Maps of Volume II of the BSAM

M. A. Sergeev reviews the representation of the Soviet North in volume II of the Great Soviet World Atlas. He praises the general and regional maps for clearly showing the distribution of economic activities, industrial centres, transport and trade networks, and the coexistence of industrial and traditional resource-based economies. He finds the comparison of pre-revolutionary and Soviet economic conditions particularly effective. Examples from Krasnoyarsk, Arkhangelsk, Omsk and the Far East illustrate how supplementary maps and insets clarify regional economic patterns without overcrowding the main maps. His criticisms include misplaced settlements, weak representation of population density in Yakutia, insufficient coverage of reindeer herding, and omissions in fishing, marine hunting and industrial activities. He also objects to combining fishing and marine hunting under one symbol in the historical inset. Sergeev judges the volume exceptionally useful for teaching and economic research, crediting its current information to careful processing of departmental manuscript materials in a field with few published economic sources.