Russia Gazetteers

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A gazetteer is a dictionary of place-names. It describes towns and villages; townships and counties; provinces; sizes of population; and rivers, mountains, and other geographical features. Gazetteers usually include only the names of places that existed at the time the gazetteer was published. The place-names are listed in alphabetical order, similar to a dictionary.

Use a gazetteer to find the places where your family lived and to determine the civil jurisdictions over those places.

The definition of the term gazetteer, when used in a geographical sense, is a "geographical index or dictionary." When used in atlases or map indexes, gazetteers are simply assemblages of alphabetically-ordered listings of places or physical/cultural features. More extensive gazetteers include brief descriptions along with the listings. The comprehensive gazetteer, however, is an encyclopedia of geographical places and features''. The Columbia Gazetteer of the World'' is such an encyclopedia.


 * http://www.columbiagazetteer.org/

Russian Empire Gazeteers
Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Baltics were previously in the Russian Empire. In 1797 each county (uezd) was divided into districts (volost) and villages (derevnya or selo; a selo normally had a church). A city (gorod) was independent of the county/district hierarchy. This organization remained stable throughout the 19th century, the number of provinces increasing to 50 in European Russian (excluding Finland and Poland). The Soviets used the term oblast for the highest jurisdictional level and created more of them. Records of modern states may be found in the archive of another state that was an imperial capital. They also instituted the region (raion) to replace both the county and district levels.

Spiski naselennykh Mest Rossiiski Imperii
The basic gazetteer for the Russian Empire is Spiski Naselennykh Mest Rossiiskoi Imperii [List of Populated Places in Imperial Russia]. S. Peterburg: Tsentralnyi Statisticheskii Komitet Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del, 1861-1885.62 vols. (Fiche 6,002,224 /420 microfiches). It identifies location and religious congregations.

v. 1 Arkhangel'sk no. 1-5 v. 2 Astrakhan no. 6-8 v. 3 Bessarabia no. 9-12 v. 6 Vladimir no. 13-26 v. 7 Vologda no. 27-41 v. 9 Voronezh no. 42-49 v. 10 Vyatka no. 50-79 v. 12 Zemlya Voyska Donskago no. 80-85 v. 13 Yekaterinoslav no. 86-91 v. 14 Kazan no. 92-100 v. 15 Kaluga no. 101-109 v. 18 Kostroma no. 110-128 v. 20 Kursk no. 129-136v. 24 Moskva no. 137-144 v. 25 Nizhniy Novgorod no. 145-152 v. 27 Olonets no. 153-162 v. 28 Orenburg no. 163-168 v. 29 Orel no. 169-179 v. 30 Penza no. 180-184 v. 31 Perm no. 185-208 v. 33 Poltava no. 209-216 v. 34 Pskov no. 217-237 v. 35 Ryazan no. 238-243 v. 36 Samara no. 244-248 v. 37 Sanktpeterburg no. 249-258 v. 38 Saratov no. 259-263 v. 39 Simbirsk no. 264-268 v. 40 Smolensk no. 269-289 v. 41 Tavrida no. 290-299 v. 42 Tambov no. 300-307 v. 43 Tver no. 308-321 v. 44 Tula no. 322-327 v. 45 Ufa no. 328-339 v. 46 Khar'kov no. 348-356 v. 47 Kherson no. 340-347 v. 48 Chernigov no. 357-367 v. 50 Yaroslav no. 368-383 v. 51 Yeniseysk no. 384-388 v. 60 Tobol'sk no. 389-401 v. 60a Tomsk no. 402-411 v. 65 Baku no. 412-419 v. 3 Bessarabia index (1 fiche GS 6001781)

Russisches Geographisches Namenbuch
The best comprehensive gazetteer of all localities in Imperial Russia is by Vasmer, Max. Russisches Geographisches Namenbuch [Russian Geographical Namebook]. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 1964-1981. Nachtrag (Supplement), 1988. 11 vols. (Book 947 E5r). Usable to non-Russian readers because the explanatory text is in German, but place names are still in Cyrillic.

Locality directories were the primary source for much of the data in the Namenbuch. These directories have the additional value of identifying where churches were located. For all practical purposes, this is only available in microfiche, though copies of a few individual volumes can be found occasionally in major research libraries. The text is in Russian. Each volume contains a locality index.