Описи Київського (1869 р.), Одеського (1871 р.) та Харківського (1871 р.) військових округів: історія створення та джерельна основа документів.

The article reviews the arrangement in the late 60's – early 70's XX c. of military topographical descriptions of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa military districts; methods of collecting, organizing and processing of historical sources by survey participants military districts of the Russian Empire. Authors of article focused his attention mainly on the analysis of the problems associated with the creation of the MTD, namely the existence of the organizers of the examination of different concep - tual approaches to streamline procedures and methodology descriptions; insufficient number of representative and reliable sources on the history of settlement and economic development of certain regions of the Russian state; the refusal of local authorities to cooperate with the leaders and members of the military-topographical expeditions; permanent territorial-administrative reform, which led to an information update descriptions draft after another change of the internal borders of the Russian Empire; lack of the required number of translators who have worked in the military expeditions in national topographic regions of the Russian Empire and others. The article emphasizes the change of methodological and methodical approaches to organizing a new group of military-topographical descriptions, it was noted that the royal government refused to streamline inventories encyclopedic, and focused attention compilers only search for information for military purposes, such as information on tactical properties area, the main routes for troops, the technical bases quartering of troops, state reserves of wealth army and navy and others. In a subsequent paper materials can be used for writing the source-specific problem and works on the history of Ukraine late 60's – early 70's. XX c. and relevant textbooks and lectures for schools higher education.