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In recent years, many maps produced in the former Soviet Union have become available. However, researchers have focused on topographical maps or those of Western cities produced by the General Staff for military use, and less on maps created by GUGK, the state mapping agency, for domestic purposes, including tourism. By contrast, this paper focuses on maps produced for tourists, whether travelling by private car or on an organized rail or bus tour. The 42 maps reviewed take three main forms: those covering a single administrative region, ranging from an oblast to a Soviet republic; those of a specific tourist area or associated with a literary hero; and strip maps connecting major cities. The paper considers the general design and symbology used on these maps, tracing some of the stylistic changes and developments in the quarter-century prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soviet military maps utilized a comprehensive cartographic symbology that was designed for mapping the globe at various scales, including thousands of towns and cities in street-level detail. This paper presents an analysis of the Soviet symbol specifications, as defined by the official cartographic production documents, and aims to offer some insights into how the challenges of mapping a global diversity of urban and natural environments were addressed. A further stage of the analysis examines a sample of 19 Soviet military city plans to evaluate the implementation of the official symbology specified in the production documents. This finds that barely half of this symbology was utilized and that new symbols were routinely created as improvised solutions. By comparing the theoretical context of the symbology with its real-world application the paper offers a critical appraisal of the versatility of the Soviet approach that may inform current and future global mapping initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The plans of world cities outside the USSR that were produced by the Soviet military during the Cold War each include a List of Important Objects. These are items of significant strategic economic, administrative or military importance. This paper examines these object lists from Soviet military plans of British cities and discusses their contents. It concludes that there is considerable variation in their comprehensiveness and some inconsistency in the criteria used to select objects for inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]