Soviet maps
The Soviet Cold War Mapping of British Towns and Cities
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union achieved an unprecedented cartographic feat. From around 1950–1990, the Military Topographic Directorate (Voyenno Topograficheskogo Upravleniya or VTU) of the Soviet Army General Staff was responsible for conducting an extensive programme to map the whole world at 1:1,000,000, 1:500,000, and 1:200,000 scales and to cover Europe, the Middle East, North and Central America, large areas of South America, the Indian subcontinent, South-East Asia, China, and the populated areas of Africa at the larger scales of 1:100,000 and 1:50,000. Mapping the Soviet Union alone involved the creation of some 800,000 maps; for comparison, at the height of its paper production, Ordnance Survey of Great Britain maintained an inventory of around 230,000 sheets.
Alongside the production of maps at these smaller scales designed for tactical use was a highly secret programme of mapping foreign towns and cities at 1:25,000 and 1:10,000 scales. These included major transport hubs, naval bases, and sites of other strategic importance that were probably military objectives as part of a major ground offensive. The maps would have played a key role in their capture and for subsequent command and control operations. In the United Kingdom, 88 towns and cities (including London, Edinburgh, Southampton, and Bristol) are known to have been mapped and it is likely that maps of others are still to be discovered. As can be deduced from their print codes (bottom right-hand edge of map border), the majority of these maps were produced in the 1970s, which coincides with the development of the Zenit programme of Soviet reconnaissance satellites.
What is perhaps most striking – apart from seeing a familiar landscape labelled in Cyrillic – is the staggering amount of detail provided on the maps, particularly in terms of land use. Strategically-important buildings have been identified and subsequently classified according to three criteria: government and communications (purple), military (green), and military-industrial (black). These are all numbered and described in a separate key, along with a street index for each town or city. The maps also include a concise description of the surrounding terrain, pattern of urban settlements, industrial and transport objects, public utilities, communication, and healthcare facilities. It is likely that such information was gathered from agents on the ground where possible, supplementing the data gathered from remote sensing and captured topographic maps. This approach is altogether different from the German Planheft mapping programme of World War II, which provided the geospatial intelligence for the planned invasion of Britain. In that case, native mapping (i.e. Ordnance Survey) was photographically transformed to a metric scale and then directly annotated with strategic information. The Soviet method was much more comprehensive; contours were completely re-drawn and some maps even indicate the construction materials of bridges (along with their width and carrying capacity), lengths of tunnels, river depths and navigability, and projected motorways – as is the case with the M27 on the map of Southampton (1986). Maps of other towns and cities around the world were produced to this high specification (e.g. Copenhagen, Berlin, Montreal, and Dakar) and undoubtedly, many more are yet to be discovered.
An abandoned map depot in Latvia was acquired by a local map dealer after the retreat of Soviet forces in the early 1990s and the maps became available to the West for the first time. Although they conceal a rather chilling fact, the Soviet maps of towns and cities challenge our sense of place with their unfamiliar symbology and lettering, encouraging us to think about the way cartographers choose to represent the landscape. These particular maps were designed to be versatile tools for serving the interests of the Soviet Army General Staff, as their selection and representation of features demonstrate.
Dr Alexander Kent
Head of Cartographic Unit
High-quality prints of Soviet Cold War maps of towns and cities around the world (including Southampton, London, Exeter, Dublin, Calais, Berlin, and Warsaw) are available from the Cartographic Unit priced at £9.99 per sheet or £14.99 encapsulated (+ postage and packing).
Some cities are covered by more than one sheet so bear that in mind filling in your order form.
Download a list of sheets currently available and send an email to carto@soton.ac.uk with your order form attached.
News feeds