Atlases. A school of co-creation
Атласы. Школа сотворчества
- Publication
- В нашем доме на Старомонетном, на выселках и в поле
- Pages
- 76–90
Resources and Environment: World Atlas · Version 2
1998–1999N. N. Komedchikov recounts the compilation and publication of the two-volume atlas issued in 1998, tracing its origins to a proposed new edition of the Physical-Geographical Atlas of the World and a 1972 Academy of Sciences resolution. He describes slow early work, renewed activity under L. N. Ilyina in 1988, and E. A. Finko’s subsequent coordination, which he regards as essential to completing the project. His own collaboration with R. S. Narskikh on maps of biosphere reserves and UNESCO World Heritage sites required gathering scattered publications and requesting current lists and boundary information from international organizations and protected-area administrations. The atlas was prepared using traditional cartographic techniques and supplemented with Soviet satellite imagery and explanatory texts. Planned continental thematic maps were omitted to limit its size. Komedchikov attributes the decision to seek a foreign publisher to financial difficulties and production constraints in Russia. Ed. Hölzel GmbH undertook publication, with preparation carried out in Bratislava; the contract provided the institute with 200 copies and Russian-language text supplements. He criticizes the reproduction of satellite images, single-sided printing and screw binding, which made the folded world maps awkward to use and increased the atlas’s bulk. He reports no reviews in English-language professional journals and no recognition at the 1999 Ottawa cartographic exhibition, suggesting that printing quality explains this reception. He nevertheless rates its scientific content highly and records the author team’s receipt of the F. N. Krasovsky Prize in 2002.
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The supplied opening and closing sections recount collaborative organization and technological change in Soviet and Russian atlas production. The opening describes the World Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources, intended to assess global snow and ice reserves, their regimes and variability, and potential uses. Formally proposed in 1973 and approved by the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1975, with international support, the completed atlas contains more than 1,000 maps in 17 thematic sections across 400 pages. Nearly 300 participants worked under a common programme involving approximately 30 institutions; 240 authors contributed maps. The authors emphasize the roles of geographical atlas-making traditions, centralized research organization, and participant enthusiasm, detailing how editorial regulations, map review, glaciological meetings, and specialist publications supported collaboration. The closing discusses A. A. Lyuty’s theory of map language and its reception, alongside financial difficulties and laboratory staff changes in the 1990s. It then describes the GIS atlas Our Earth, developed from continental maps excluded from the ПСЕРМ atlas. Work began in 1993 through cooperation between the cartography laboratory and Data+, with ESRI technical and financial support, using ArcInfo and ArcView. Production involved digitization, editing, coordination of maps, and preparation of English texts; the atlas was first presented at the International Cartographic Conference in Stockholm in 1997. The account states that more than 25 years of work on ПСЕРМ ultimately yielded a printed atlas and a GIS atlas completed in under five years. It also links the shorter production schedules of subsequent Russian comprehensive atlases to close teamwork and the full adoption of computer-based cartographic technologies around the turn of the century.
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