There is a small-scale World Hemisphere Map on the wall in Vladimir Ulyanov’s room, published and printed in the late 19th century by the Cartographic Establishment of Alexey Afinogenovich Ilyin in St. Petersburg. In the 1880s this shop produced almost 90% of all maps used in the Russian Empire. The founder’s son, Alexey Ilyin, personally compiled and edited maps and educational atlases. All in all, the company employed more than 30 engravers, 20 printers, and 60 handymen. In addition to maps, they printed city plans, blueprints, labels, patterns, commendation sheets, etc.

The map in the exhibition depicts continents, oceans, plains, and mountains in yellow, brown, and blue. In addition to physical geographic features, the engraver also mapped states, colonial territories, and other lands within boundaries according to the political situation of the second half of the 19th century.

The map shows virtually no borders of the countries of the African continent, as the main events related to the redivision of Africa would happen only in the 20th century. But it already marked the majority of islands in the Pacific Ocean — the Hawaii, the Marshall Islands, the Tuamotu Archipelago, known as the Russians’ Islands (in 1820, traveler Faddei Bellingshausen named some of the atolls after the eminent Russians), and others.

There are parallels marked on the map, not typical for modern maps — Tropic of Capricorn and Tropic of Cancer. On modern maps, they are indicated as the southern and northern tropics, respectively. These are the southernmost and northernmost latitudes at which the sun may rise to its zenith at noon. The tropics are shown approximately, as their exact location depends on the tilt of the planet’s axis of rotation relative to the Sun.

The World Hemisphere Map in terms of the contours of the continents and oceans is virtually modern ones, indicating the high geographical culture and scientific development of the second half of the 19th century. The northern boundary of the southernmost polar continent, Antarctica, is missing. As a continent it was discovered on January 28, 1820 by the Russian expedition of Faddei Bellingshausen, but its exact boundaries were being clarified by geographers until the beginning of the 20th century.