760
October 2015
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
maybe longer. It depends on whether the FSB comes up with
any evidence that he was spying,” he said. “Who sends a spy
home for Christmas? It’s funny!” Petrayev added.
(Moscow
Times, 24 December, 1997).
(As I recall, President Bill Clinton personally telephoned
President Boris Yeltsin and explained that the young Bliss
was ignorant of the fact that recording GPS coordinates of
potential cell phone towers on hill tops was considered an act
of espionage when Russian Triangulation Stations were ALSO
on the same hill tops – Ed.).
Russia is bordered by Azerbaijan (338 km) (
PE&RS
,
September 2010), Belarus (1,312) (
PE&RS
, February 2013)
km, China (4,179 km) (
PE&RS
, May 2000), Estonia (324
km) (
PE&RS
, August 2007), Finland (1,309 km) (
PE&RS
,
October 2006), Georgia (894 km) (
PE&RS
, June 2012),
Kazakhstan (7,644 km) (
PE&RS
, April 2010), Korea (18
km) (
PE&RS
, November 1999), Latvia (332 km) (
PE&RS
,
September 2002), Lithuania (261) (
PE&RS
, December 2008)
km, Mongolia (3,452 km) (
PE&RS
, January 2003), Norway
(191 km) (
PE&RS
, October 1999), Poland (210 km) (
PE&RS
,
September 2000), and Ukraine (1,944 km) (
PE&RS
, June
2004). The terrain has a broad plain with low hills west of
Urals; vast coniferous forest and tundra in Siberia; uplands
and mountains along southern border regions. The lowest
point is the Caspian Sea (-28 m); the highest point is Gora
El’brus
)
(5,633 m), which is the highest point
in Europe. Russia is largest country in the world in terms of
area but unfavorably located in relation to major sea lanes of
the world; despite its size, much of the country lacks proper
soils and climates (either too cold or too dry) for agriculture;
Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world, is estimated to
hold one fifth of the world’s fresh water
(World Factbook,
2015)
.
“There are three distinct periods of mapping activity in
the U.S.S.R.; these coincide with the country’s history and
territorial changes. In the first period, between 1845 and
1920, the Russian Empire extended deeply into Europe and
included the territories of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania,
and large parts of Poland, Finland, and other neighboring
countries. For the first time in the history of mapping into
the Russian Empire, topographic maps were based on an
accurate geodetic survey. The principal mapping agency for
this period was the
Korpus Voyennykh Topografov
– KVT
(Corps of Military Topographers) under the Russian Imperial
General Staff.
“The second period started in 1920, after the Bolshevik
Revolution, when the Russian Empire became the Soviet
Union and lost large parts of its European territory to the
independent states: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
and others. This period ended in 1945. During this time the
Soviets established two new mapping organizations: the
Voyenno-Topograficheskoye Upravleniye
– VTU (Military
Topographic Administration) under the
General’nyy Shtab
Krasnoy Armii
(General Staff of the Red Army) and the
Glavnoye Upravleniye Geodezii i Kartografi
– GUGK (Main
Administration of Geodesy and Cartography), first under
the Council of Ministers and later under the Ministry of
Interior. These two organizations surveyed the territory east
of the new border to the Astrakhan-Moscow-Leningrad line
and published maps at the scales of 1:25,000, 1:50,000, and
1:100,000. Only small portions of the Far East, around Lake
Khanka, were covered by topographic maps at these scales.
“The third period started in 1945 after the end of World
War II. The western boundary of the U.S.S.R. again moved
westward and Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were again
engulfed by the Soviets, together with a large portion of
former Polish territory. GUGK and VTU remained the two
most important mapping organizations, and their main
task was to consolidate the entire triangulation net of the
country and establish a new system of coordinates based on
the newly computed Krasovskiy ellipsoid. All the existing
maps were converted to the new system of coordinates and
a photogrammetric compilation of unmapped territory was
started. By 1956 the entire Soviet Union had been covered
by topographic maps at the scale of 1:100,000” (
TM 5-248,
Foreign Maps, Army Map Service, October 1963).
“a.
Verst Maps.
These maps have heterogeneous coordinate
systems based on the local astronomic positions or on Pulkovo
Observatory, with vertical datum based on the nearest sea
or lake level, established by barometric leveling. Horizontal
control was computed on the Bessel 1841 spheroid
(a =
6,377,397.155 m,
1
/
f
= 299.1528 – Ed.)
and the polyhedral
projection
(same as the Local Space Rectangular as defined
in the Manual of Photogrammetry, 5
th
& 6
th
editions – Ed.)
.
Longitudes were referenced to Pulkovo or Ferro,
(Ferro was
sometimes considered 17° 39’ 59.411” West of Greenwich –
Ed.)
and in some instances, Greenwich. Verst maps have no
military grid.
“b.
Soviet Maps Produced before World War II
. These
maps retained the Bessel spheroid (a = 6,377,397 m
{sic}
;
α
= 1:229.15
{sic}
) but adopted the Gauss-Krüger projection
and Greenwich as the prime meridian. There were two main
systems of coordinates:
Pulkovo 32 System
(Φ
o
= 59° 46´
18.71˝; Λ
o
= +30° 19´ 39.55˝)
(Note: in TM 5-248, Astronomic
Latitude of Origin (
Φ
o
) is abbreviated “B
o
” which is German
for Breite or Latitude, and Astronomic Longitude of Origin
(
Λ
o
), is abbreviated “L
o
” which is German for Lange or
Longitude – Ed.)
and
Svobodnyy 1935
(Φ
o
= 51° 25´ 36.55˝;
Λ
o
= +128° 11´ 34.77˝). The
Pulkovo 1932 System
was used
in European U.S.S.R., and the
Svobodnyy System
was used
east of the meridian. Discrepancy between the two systems
reached 270 m. in northing and 790 m in easting. In Central
Asia, the
Tashkent 1875 System
of coordinates was used
with origin at the Tashkent Observatory (Φ
o
= 41° 19´ 31.35˝;
Λ
o
= +69° 17´ 40.80˝), and in the Caucasus the
Baku 1927
System
was used, the origin at the Tower of Khan Court
(Φ
o
= 40° 21´ 57.90˝; Λ
o
= +49° 50´ 27.57˝). All topographic
