Anyone who has ever visited St. Petersburg could not help but remember the Kunstkamera building, which stands out on the Neva with its unusual dome, which has been a symbol of the Russian Academy of Sciences since the beginning of the 18th century. The dome of the Kunstkamera was not a tribute to the ultramodern architectural ideas of the 18th century, but was a purely functional element of the first Russian state museum and observatory, which housed the Gottorp Globe - a planetarium globe donated to Peter I, made in 1654-64 in Holstein by order of Frederick III under the leadership of geographer and court astronomer of the Holstein dukes, Adam Olearius.
In 1726, when the Kunstkamera was being built in St. Petersburg, it was simply impossible to drag this huge globe inside either through the windows or through the doors, so it was first raised to the third floor, and only then erected to the end of the walls of the Kunstkamera building itself.
The Gottorp globe itself is a hollow ball with a diameter of 3.11 meters and weighing 3.5 tons, made on an iron frame. Its inner and outer surfaces are painted on a pasted over canvas: on the outside - a map of the Earth, on the inside - the celestial constellations. The globe is set on a fixed axis, on which a wooden table and a bench for 12 people were fixed inside it. The inside of the globe fell through the door that is part of it. Similar planetarium globes have not survived in other countries, and Russia has the only surviving copy.
Since the 18th century, when studying the Gottorp Globe, some researchers have encountered problems that are difficult to explain for them. The most incomprehensible for them is the fact that Russia is actually divided in two on the map of the Gottorp Globe. The northern part of Russia is highlighted in blue on it, stretching from the modern Leningrad region in the west to Taimyr Island in the east and to Yaroslavl in the south.
What prompted the ancient European cartographers to take such liberty, which, however, for some reason, was not stopped by the enlightened Russian Tsar Peter, who expanded, but did not divide the Russian lands? Moreover, he exhibited LIKE in the main STATE Museum of Russia, and he himself spent a lot of time inside the Gottorp Globe, which, according to contemporaries, was EXTREMELY interesting to him. The geographical "liberty" with the division of Russia was meticulously recreated after the death of Peter I - after the great fire of 1747, when everything on the globe itself that could have burned down. But by 1751 the globe was completely and very carefully restored - the Academy of Sciences kept an accurate description of the globe, and the craftsmen under the leadership of B. Scott were able to recreate the original design of the Gottorp globe.and the artists of the Drawing Chamber of the Academy of Sciences accurately recreated the map and drawings of the constellations on its inner side.
But are there too many questions WHY arise in connection with the Gottorp Globe?
However, the answer to many questions can be obtained by making just one assumption - the cartographers of the Middle Ages, like Tsar Peter, knew something important about the geographical star map of the Hyperboreans and quite well - about Hyperborea itself, which is already ours - modern scientists, engaged in the study of its heritage, localized it in that place of Russia, which on the Gottorp Globe is highlighted in blue in the Russian North. And with this - everything is open and understandable suddenly becomes in the Gottorp Globe, don't you think ?!
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