A Russian Published Map of the Russian Empire

Important map of the Russian Empire, published in St. Petersburg by Johannes Treskot

Treskot & Schmidt's survey of Russia was the next major survey following the work of Joseph Nicolas De L'Isle. Almost immediately after the publication of De l'Isle's atlas of Russia in 1745, the Geographical Department of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences began planning for a new atlas of Russia. For various reasons, however, an updated work would not appear for several decades. As noted by Leo Bagrow

There are frequent references to atlases of the Russian Empire published during the decades of the 1750's and 1760's…Actually, these atlases were simply loose collections of maps published the years following 1754, primarily during the period of Lomonosov and Rumovskiy…Copies of such atlases were individual collections of maps, sometimes provided with a title page which, it would seem, was usually printed in one copy only.

The most prolific of these mapmakers were Johann Schmidt and Johann Treskot. Bagrow notes that these mapmakers were actively revising De L'Isle's work in the 1750s and 1760s, with Schmidt primarily focused on the Baltic Regions and Treskot on Siberia.