In 1782 the Russian crown prince Paul visited Riga, capital of the Livonian province and met, among others, the commander-in-chief general Berg. When the future tsar expressed an interest in the location of the Livonian division of the Russian army, it turned out that no such map actually existed. Following this unpleasant discovery, Ludwig August Mellin who worked at the general's office of technical drawing, was commissioned to quickly compile the required map.

Mellin fulfilled the expectations, although at the presentation of the map he had to point to various inaccuracies as the area was not sufficiently explored. Paul could hardly have imagined that his remark to Mellin about 'the duty of eliminating the shortcomings' would lead to a complete Livonian atlas, the last part of which would appear 28 years later. The whole work contained one general and 14 district maps (four of the present Latvia and ten of Estonian areas). In addition to the coastline, islands and settlements, Mellin's map also had roads, administrative divisions, reefs, depressions, highlands, marshlands, sandy areas and forests. He used the maps of the Russian Academy of Sciences and military topographers, but mostly manor house maps. Mellin's atlas was probably the first to depict Estonian mountains. The atlas appeared in Riga as a supplement to the Estophile Hupel's work "Topographische Nachrichten von Lief- und Esthland"; later it was published separately in Leipzig. In the 18th century Baltic countries, Mellin's work was an outstanding cartographical achievement, which distinguished fortified and not fortified towns, castles, manor houses, cattle farms, pubs, harbours, lighthouses, etc. A valuable database in its own right offered about 7100 place names in German, Estonian and Latvian, including Loksa.

coast in north-estonia

Not all Mellin's experiences with the atlas were altogether pleasant. Although the maps were issued by a Riga bookseller, the whole work was engraved abroad, so at some point Mellin was even accused of revealing state secrets and arrested. In 1798 an ukase of Paul I stopped the sale of the maps, and the copies in private possession were ordered to be returned. The sale of the maps continued only after the death of the tsar.

The compiler of the atlas, count Ludwig August Mellin was born in 1754 in the family manor house of Tuhala in North-Estonia. Having acquired a typical education of a young nobleman of the time, he travelled extensively in Europe and then entered military service where he took part in the military campaign against the Turks. He resigned from the Russian army as a major and took up politics: he was director and president of the Livonian supreme consistory, Landrat of Livona, etc. As an active fighter for the rights of peasantry (he supported the abolition of serfdom), Mellin found himself in conflict with several members of the Livonian knighthood and had to resign in 1818. He died in Riga in 1835, leaving behind a legacy upon which Julius Eckardt wrote: Count Mellin was one of the most dignified and remarkable men of the Livonian enlightenment era, someone whose name is directly linked with all major reorganisations in our country in the early 19th century, but who was nevertheless forgotten much more quickly than he deserved or his contemporaries thought possible.

Sources:
Jõgi, Aime. Krahv Mellini atlased on tänuväärne allikas. Newspaper Sakala, 21 February 2004
Judo, Indrek. Ludwig August krahv Mellin kui talurahva sõber ja estofiil. Magazine Tuna, 4/2003.