[R] maps for Russian Federation

[Albrecht Kauffmann]

Dear all,

I am interested in plotting maps visualizing spatial statistics in an
aggregated fashion, according to administrative boundaries. Partially, I
want to visualize some spatial data for administrative units (autonomous
republics, oblasts, krays) of the Russian Federation on a geographical
map.

I have found the maps package (and related) and would like to use this
package e.g. in a kind of:
map("state",fill=T,col=color)
where color is dependent on the statistic of interest.

Still I lack a data file for counties' boundaries in Russia. Does anybody
know where to find one? What format do I need? Is there any convenient
tool for converting from other formats?

With many thanks for any hint

Albrecht Kauffmann
economist, Potsdam university