Soviet Spies Map the World
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union compiled topographic maps of virtually every corner of the world, to the extent that they are the only topo maps available for certain countries. The maps were both standardized and accurate; they were made for military purposes, so the same, specific information was needed regardless of which area was being mapped. John Davies has been studying these maps, in particular on how the Soviet Union mapped the United Kingdom. His site includes scans of a few of the maps as well as a two-part paper that, in part, deals with how the Soviets compiled their information (and whether they violated Ordnance Survey Crown Copyright in the process). Tremendously interesting stuff. Via Cartography.
See previous entry: Soviet Topo Maps; Old Russian Maps.
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Morten:
I’ve seen their maps of Denmark as well. The maps were of extremely high standard, and contains more information than the national danish cadastre have in their maps. Pretty impressive work I must say (and quite fun to see the well-known placenames in Russion :-)
November 21, 2005 at 9:22 AM
Michal Migurski:
Very interesting, very Soviet. Apparently such accurate maps were considered a military asset. The urban maps released to civilians or visitors in Soviet-controlled countries were intentionally distorted, so they could be used for simple wayfinding but not much else. In my hometown of Wroclaw (Poland), the 1997 flood of the Odra river was made drastically worse by the non-availability of accurate topo maps, preventing city officials from predicting the flood’s behavior. Civilians were not allowed to map or survey on their own - my uncle had a nasty run-in with suspicious security personnel trying to take vacation snapshots at the train station.
November 22, 2005 at 4:19 PM