The Imperiia Project: a spatial history of the Russian Empire

Shesterikov's Observation Sites

The Flora Odessa tells us where we might find wooly buttercups both within the immediate field of research and in the broader world. Its references reach as far as northern Africa and eastern Siberia, but Shesterikov's main goal was to document the flora of the southern provinces of the Russian Empire - the lands Catherine II called Novorossiia, or "New Russia," and that we know as Ukraine and Moldova. 

Shesterikov's research area covers roughly 1,000 square kilometers (377 square miles), but let's be realistic: he didn't explore every nook and crevice. He went from site to site along roads and pathways, documenting observations in a scattering of villages and towns. We identified his sites of field research, in most cases by triangulating between the flora data, modern GIS data (thank you, OpenStreetMap!), and historical maps.

This incredibly detailed town plan of the city of Odessa (drawn by the city surveyor in 1894) gives us the spatial context for many of Shesterikov's observation sites. Move your cursor across the map to reveal the annotations and zoom in to get as close as you like. Keep in mind that the boxes tell you the general area of the named village or park or neighborhood, and that you would need to rotate the map clockwise 90 degrees to correct the orientation (north is on the left).

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