Peoples of the Soviet Union, 1976 map.

30 comments
  1. Sprawling across eleven time zones and comprising a sixth of earth’s land surface, the USSR embraced more than a hundred ethnic strains.

    To speak of the Soviet peoples is to speak of a history of conquest, suffering, and revolution.

  2. This map is great at illustrating how Russia and later the Soviet Union was a colonial empire. And unlike other colonial powers Russia even got to keep much of it.

  3. National Geographic magazine has THE BEST fold-out maps like these. I put these all over my room as a kid and would stare at them and read them for hours

  4. This is amazing, thanks. From Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.

    I’m going to Estonia later this month, I’m going to try for all the SSRs. I’ve only done Latvia, Ukraine and Georgia so far. I’m fascinated by the Soviet Union.

  5. Kazakh on the picture is real Kazakh rebels leader Kalibek hakim, who fought against Chinese nationalists and then Chinese communists in 1940s

  6. I cannot imagine such a map being published today. Literate, interesting descriptions that assume intelligence and curiosity in the reader and aren’t dumbed-down to a third grade level in an effort to make them “accessible.” I’m noticed this in park service booklets from the 50s and 60s as well, lot of information density, not a lot of hand holding.

  7. Being forcefully occupied does not make subjugated people part of this abomination of a country. Although the Kremlin tried determinedly for decades to remodel the minds of Lithuanians, it failed to quell Lithuanian national identity, so much so that Russian settlers were terrified to move to Lithuania

  8. What truely amazes me here is all the religious diversity of all these people:

    * Orthodox Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Moldovans, Georgians;
    * Chatholic Lithuanians;
    * Protestant Latvians and Estonians;
    * Early Christian Armenians;
    * Sunni Tatars, Khazaks, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kirgiz, Tajik;
    * Shia Azerbajijani;
    * Jews (I was astound how many people in Israel were fluent in Russian cleary coming from Russia or Ukraine, far more than English);
    * All the native religions of other peoples;

  9. It’s a boilerplate description at best, aiming to spark people’s interest by giving them very shallow and oversimplified information.

    Also I feel like this map is romanticizing the ethnic environment and social situation while juggling around with historic facts from different epochs.

  10. Sadly these kinds of threads are just a chance for the dumb western commies and Russian nationalists to spam the same propaganda bullshit most of us have already seen 100s of times.

  11. Map: Everyone smiling

    Reality: Every single one of these ethnic groups was persecuted and partially exterminated by the Russian Government at some point

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