The Russian Street View Gallery

The new release of Street View in Russia has captured some great images of buildings in Moscow and St. Petersburg. I've started to put together a Russian Street View Gallery to showcase some of the best Street Views in Russia.

The gallery uses the Google Street View Image API to provide preview images of the Street Views in the gallery. Just click on any of the small thumbnail images to view the full Street View in the full Google Map.

Street View Launched in Russia

Red Square

Google Maps now has Street View imagery in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia. There is also a little pocket of Street View around the Qolsharif Mosque in Kazan. Street View Fun also discovered that one street in Lodz, in Poland has also been given Street View.

In Moscow you can now take a virtual stroll on Google Maps around Red Square and the Kremlin. In St.Petersburg you can stroll around the whole UNESCO Heritage site of the centre of St. Petersburg. This includes the Winter Palace and The Peter and Paul Fortress.


The Peterhof Palace, St.Petersburg

Some more Russian landmarks that can now be viewed in Street View are:

The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow
The Peterhof Palace, St.Petersburg (and all the Palace gardens)
The Old St.Petersburg Stock Exchange
The Church of the Saviour on Blood, St Petersburg

Via: Google Lat Long

Historical Moscow on Google Maps

Old Maps of Moscow has a very large collection of historical maps of the Russian capital.

The site uses Google Maps to help users navigate the historical collection. Users need to click on the Google Map of Moscow to show the location they are interested in viewing. Then they can select from the many historical maps to view the chosen location on their chosen map.

The map collection goes back to 1739 and includes plans, topographic maps, historical aerial photography and much more.

Russian Greenpeace on Google Maps

Greenpeace has released a Google Map of recycling stations in Moscow.

The map shows the locations of recycling stations for paper, glass, plastic bottles, old electronics and clothing in the Russian capital. The map includes custom made markers that are colour coordinated to indicate the type of recycling possible at each station.

It is also possible for users to add the location of missing recycling locations to the map.

Greenpeace - Moscow Recycling Map

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Finding Friends with Google Maps

ecocedu

This Russian website uses Google and Yandex Maps to show the locations of user submitted photographs and messages.

The most interesting feature of ecocedu is the mapping of user submitted messages. Anyone can choose a location on the map and leave a message about a 'neighbour'. Messages can be left to try and track down old friends. For example,

"My friend lived here in 1990. He was called ....... Does anyone know where he lives now?"

Using the map control buttons at the top of the map it is possible to view Google road or satellite maps or Yandex road and satellite map tiles.

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Russian Widfire Tracking Maps

At the time of writing 48 people are reported to have died and seven regions are under a state of emergency as a result of the wildfires raging in Russia. In response to the crisis a number of maps attempting to track the fires have been created.

Russian-Fires.ru

Russian-Fires are using the Ushahidi map reporting system to help provide a Google Map showing the fires. Users can inform Russian-Fires about other incidents by e-mail or via Twitter.

The map shows the location of fires and blocked roads. Along the bottom of the map is a time-line so you can change the dates to view data for different periods of time. Fires on the map are also listed in chronological order under the map.


Andrei's Blog has been doing a good job reporting on other online maps tracking the Russian fires. Russian website Yandex has its own Fire Map as does GeoMixer.

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Historical Moscow on Google Maps

Oldmos

Oldmos is a Russian website of historical photographs of Moscow. The home page of Oldmos features a prominent Google Map that shows the location of the historical photographs submitted to the site.

You can pan and zoom the map to view the photographs from different locations. You can also use the slider below the map to select to view only photographs from a specific date range. As well as browsing the historical photographs by map you can also browse them by those recently added and those that are top rated.

Via: Google Maps Mania.ru (no relation) and Andrei's Blog

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Real-Time Buses in Novosibirsk

Nskgortrans

The city of Novosibirsk in Russia has released a real-time tracking Google Map for the city's bus network. Using the map it is possible to view the locations in real-time of all the city's buses.

You can select to view buses on any individual bus line or select a combination of any lines. If you click on any of the displayed buses on a line you can view the schedule of when it will arrive at the stops on its route.

There is also a mobile phone optimised version of the site so that you can see how far away the next bus is when you are actually standing at a bus-stop.

Via: Andrei's Blog

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Location Reminders with Google Maps

Epythia

Google Calendar is a great application for reminding you of your important appointments and meetings. It can even show you on a Google Map the locations of your appointments. What it can't do is remind you to do something when you come near a specific location.

This is where Epythia comes in. Epythia is a new (currently in Beta) service that can remind you to do something when you are in the proximity of a defined location. For example, you can set a reminder to pick up those freshly roasted coffee beans when you come within a mile of your favourite coffee shop. Then whenever you happen to be passing within touching distance Epythia will ping you your reminder.

This is such a simple but brilliant idea. I'm always reading about exhibitions, cafes and shops that I like the sound of and thinking I must visit them when I'm in the area. Nine times of ten however I will forget. With Epythia I no longer have to miss out.

Epythia is currently in Beta. This means that you can set reminders for locations and set the radius within which you wish to be reminded. However, unless I'm missing something (a lot of the site is in Russian) there doesn't actually seem to be an app yet which will ping you the reminder.

I am assuming that applications will be on the way soon for most smart phones. Meanwhile you can always access your saved map on your phone's browser just to check what locations you have posted to visit.

Via: http://twitter.com/andreitr

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The Trans Siberian Express on Google Maps

Virtual Journey on Google Maps

If you like trains then you will love this Google Maps mashup. Google.ru have created this brilliant virtual journey of the Trans Siberian Express route using Google Maps and YouTube.

To start the journey just press play on the YouTube video and sit back and imagine you are travelling across Russia to Vladivostok. The video shows the view from the train and the location in the video is automatically updated on the Google Map in real time.

It is also possible to click on the town names along the route to skip to that section of the journey.

This mashup is a lot more sophisticated and much better done than some of my own Google Maps & YouTube virtual train journeys. However if you love trains you might also want to check out my mapped train journeys featuring YouTube videos:

The Orient Express
The Place on Wheels (India)
The Glacier Express
The Vermonter

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Russian Google Maps Mashups Round-Up

Russian website linkstore.ru does a really good job of tracking Russian based Google Maps mashups. Here is a pick of some of their latest finds.

Unfortunately Russian isn't one of my languages, so there may be one or two mistakes in this round-up.

Retromap

If you love maps then you will love this website.

Retromap uses the Google Maps API to display a large collection of historical maps of Moscow. The collection includes 18th century maps, maps from the 19th century, pre-revolutionary 20th century maps and many more modern 20th century maps of the Russian capital.

Авто-услуги

This website maps and reviews garages, gas stations, driving schools and traffic police locations in Russia. It is possible to search the database of added locations directly from a Google Map. The site includes a rating system and user contributed reviews.

RealMetrs
RealMetrs is a Russian real-estate website that uses Google Maps to display the location of properties. It is possible to search for properties by price, type of property and location. The results of a search are displayed in list form with an accompanying Google Map displaying property locations.

Афиша

This Russian events and entertainment guide lists upcoming concerts, films, club nights and exhibitions. The site makes liberal use of Google Maps throughout to provide guides to venues in Russian cities and to show the location of upcoming events.

Банкоматор

This Google Maps mashup shows the locations of payment terminals and ATMs in Moscow. It is possible to select to view ATMs by the name of the bank and it is also possible to search the map by district or by a named street.

Via: linkstore.ru

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