The maps were part of one of the most ambitious cartographic enterprises ever undertaken. During the Cold War, the Soviet military mapped the entire world, parts of it down to the level of individual buildings. The Soviet maps of US and European cities have details that aren’t on domestic maps made around the same time, things like the precise width of roads, the load-bearing capacity of bridges, and the types of factories. They’re the kinds of things that would come in handy if you’re planning a tank invasion. Or an occupation. Things that would be virtually impossible to find out without eyes on the ground.

Inside the Secret World of Russia’s Cold War Mapmakers

Interesting article on the history of the incredible soviet era global mapping. Thought it might appeal.

(apologies if it’s been done before)

I’ve seen the NATO military maps (all in Russian) used for the Afghanistan wars. Quite funny how they were all stamped NATO SECRET, when you could buy them online from a Russian map seller……

Bloody hell there’s one of Halifax and Sowerby Bridge!

It would be great to get one of my local area – would look good on the wall..

Hunters Lodge Inn ,in Priddy has a one inch map of the area in Russian on the wall

Yeah I’d like a copy of the local one. It’s on a list but I can’t see where you would get hold of it. The article is a good read too BTW, thanks.

Managed to buy a copy of the most local one as a file from geospatial.com – need to get it printed somewhere. Shame it doesn’t have Hebden on it but it’s still pretty cool.

The detail on it when you zoom in is pretty incredible (the big text says Sowerby Bridge in Russian!):

They’re pretty incredible things! Impressive clarity in the urban area too.

grum – how did you find the right product? I can’t seem to see it

nm… found it

grum, did you pay for the raster or is there a way of seeing a preview?

Can’t seem to see a preview either. I’d be reluctant to spend that much without seeing it though.

Is that the 1:25k city plan grum?

Edit: The Newcastle (where I’m based) city plan seems a good deal bigger than the rest, but the same price, so good value. Unless the paper version is printed the same size.

Same one I was after, if you find it then let me know!

There was a preview for mine though I can’t seem to see it now. Mine is the 1:10,000.

I paid for the raster – shipping was another $55 and I couldn’t be arsed with potential hassles with customs/import duties etc.

Same one I was after, if you find it then let me know!

Will do.

Ah, Halifax is 10k whereas Newcastle is 25k, hence bigger map.

Hadn’t thought about shipping and import duty. $50 is a lot for a raster image – how big are you planning to print it? $1500 for the vector though 😯

Not sure yet. I normally get photo prints done here – http://dscolour.photokio.sk/category/135-fuji-lustre-prints-c-type

They’ve got an offer on 30″x 20″ prints for £6.99 but I dunno if that’s big enough (or if that’s the best type of printing for maps). It’s not going to be cheap all told (assuming I get it framed or something) but something quite interesting and different for the wall.

Oooh – two of my favourite things – Soviet-era stuff and maps!

My dads house who’s also a map fan (and where I grew up) is about 100m off the edge of one of the maps, so that’s Christmas sorted.

Keen to hear of people’s experience with shipping or printing out the vectors.

East View have some pretty fun old maps, well worth rummaging around the site. Have used the russian maps on a few overseas projects where no other basemapping is available.

Keen to hear of people’s experience with shipping or printing out the vectors

I meant rasters – I ain’t that rich or I’d buy myself a MiG 21 instead.

Thanks for posting. That’s my sister’s xmas present sorted (she’s a Russian history lecturer) 😀

This is a great thread. Thanks lemonysam. 🙂

A few more here, but not great detail.

Would love one of the south downs if anyone finds a link?

My work has a treasure trove of 60s &70s era OS maps of Scotland in the emergency room, quite interesting watching planned motorways and such pop up over the years. Those soviet maps look interesting, never have figured out what will wallpaper my study, might have found something…

Mapstor has some Soviet maps for download. Only smaller scale for most of the UK, unfortunately, but it’s only $1 for 1:500000 central and southern Scotland!

Here’s Peebles, Glentress and Innerleithen:

Must be going blindblind, anyone got a link to the map search (probably me just being dim)

Not Soviet, but I’ve just found this cool website showing historical OS maps:

http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/maps/

Stirling is shown here: http://tinyurl.com/nubncas
The detail and scanned quality and is superb.

(You can also see old maps of Scotland here: http://maps.nls.uk/ )

mikewsmith – Are these the maps you are looking for:

https://mapstor.com/map-sets/country-maps/great-britain.html

mikewsmith – the city plan maps are here and the 1:50ks are here. Australia don’t seem well represented though if I remember your location right.

edit: there’s 1:500ks and a few city plans.

found a 1:50k that very nearly covers my house. the eastern edge dissects our village.
do wonder where and how they source the data. i’m sure they must use something like OS or barts or something. certainly some local features are missing from the soviet map that either they didn’t know about, or didn’t care about.
but now I need to do some more research regarding one of those semi-secret hush-hush gas/oil pipelines that the government don’t tell people about, to keep fuel flowing for transport/aviation. either they were wrong, or there’s a 2nd pipeline, or the real one was more secret and the one built across my friends farm was a bluff.

Think in that article it says they nicked OS map data then used other sources (such as spies on the ground) to add stuff in. There’s quite a few details like individual houses/buildings in urban areas and things like river depth and flow speed that don’t appear on OS maps – they must have had loads of agents!

we still do…..

Are the 1:10k city maps of a sufficient scale to state street names? That’s the real attraction.

I’m looking at Edinburgh by the way.

That snippet of the sowerby bridge one up there seems to. Course it could all be the russian for soup for all I know.

According to my quick look at a Russian alphabet it translates as Soyerbi Bridz (with an accent on the z that makes it a zh kind of sound. And Halifax appears to be Galifaks for some reason – don’t think they’ve got a h.

we still do…..

Someone wasn’t paying attention to the ‘secret’ bit of secret agent training. 🙂

Soviet City Maps

We love the great interest from this audience regarding our Soviet City Maps as seen in Wired magazine. http://singletrackworld.com/…/map-fetishists-assemble-the-s…. Contact us to see if we have your city!

http://geospatial.com/products/series/topographic-maps/soviet-military-city-plans-7/

Someone wasn’t paying attention to the ‘secret’ bit of secret agent training.

Kim Philby pretty much told people he was a Spy buy that didn’t stop him carrying on for another 20 years at MI6!

Living in Cambridge, most of my neighbours are Soviet sleeper agents and/or top brass in MI5 / MI6. We don’t bother with all the cloak and dagger pretence any more and just speak Russian at dinner parties.

Nearest place to me that’s covered is Bath, followed by Bristol; I’m slightly surprised that Corsham isn’t, considering the complex of military sites and the huge Copenacre storage depot on the outskirts.
I quite like the idea of having a raster of Bath, Bristol, on the other hand, is covered by four, so that’s out.

I’ve got a 1:100k of Manchester (N-30-92) hanging in our downstairs loo in Cambridge – my Dad bought it very early 90’s I think, and I kept it as it covers where I was born and raised. He was a proper map geek – guessing these things were pretty hard to come by back then.

?????? ????? Footflaps – we must have met at those dinner parties 😉

Got the raster from Geospatial but in the process found these for you Mancs (from the uni archives)

http://enriqueta.man.ac.uk:8180/luna/servlet/view/search?q=Creator=%22Military%20Topographic%20Directorate%20%28VTU%29%22

Got my print of the Halifax map if anyone’s interested in seeing it – looks pretty cool (not the world’s greatest pictures of it but it’s very clear/sharp).

I got it from supersizeprints.co.uk – 96x90cm and it cost £26.47 including delivery – satin finish. Still need to get it framed.