Ukraine Geography Schoolbook Has Map From Skyrim

Story By:  Gheorghi CaraseniSub Editor:  Joseph GolderAgency: Central European News

A map from Bethesda’s bestselling video game Skyrim has apparently mistakenly been used in a Ukrainian geography textbook recommended by the country’s Ministry of Education.

Eagle-eyed Ukrainian secondary school students noticed that one of the maps in their geography textbook had seemingly been lifted from the fantasy world of the bestselling roleplaying video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which has sold over 30 million copies to date, making it one of the ten most successful video games of all time.

In a text above the Skyrim map, which vaguely resembles the outline of the USA, it says “reliable maps are part of humanity’s ability to orientate itself”, adding that maps are helping people to get to faraway places and to do other things like finding rivers large enough to carry big ships more quickly to their end destination.

Picture Credit: CEN/@a.chabarai

A local journalist was made aware of the book and posted the image above the official Skryim map. The post was captioned: “I don’t know if this book is really taught in schools but some geography in the sixth grade was accurately taught by Skyrim maps… only one question: PC, PS or Xbox?”

Local media report the textbook was published in 2014 with a circulation of 101,648 items.

It passed the scientific examination of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and is recommended by the country’s Ministry of Education. The map from the video game is on the 37th page of the 256-page book.

The incident comes after a photo of Canadian actor Keanu Reeves, 55, edited to make it look like he was sitting next to construction workers in 1930’s New York City was found in another Ukrainian textbook.

The image of Reeves was edited into the iconic picture shot in 1932 and published in the 10th-grade textbook.

Ukrainian Minister of Education Hanna Novosad, 29 reacted to the cases on her Facebook page saying: “It’s sad, but I have never seen a textbook with no errors in it, where the copyright is respected and the information is logical and helps to learn better”.

Skyrim has sold over 30 million copies to date, making it Bethesda Softworks’ bestselling game and one of the most successful video games of all time. It is the fifth instalment in the Elder Scrolls series and sees the player become the Dragonborn, with as their primary objective, either uniting the province of Skyrim under Imperial rule or siding with the Stormcloaks to fight for freedom.

The name of the textbook is ‘Geography 6’ (a reference to year 6) and it was published by publishing house “Genesa” and authored by Valery Pestushko and Hanna Uvarova, according to reports.

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