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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 appearance of late-Soviet military topographic maps was the outcome of a long series of reviews and revisions of preexisting map designs. These generated publicly-available normative documents and teaching manuals. While most topographic maps of Russia have been secret, these detailed supporting documents were openly published for public sale. These documents and manuals are used to describe the evolution of the designs of Soviet topographic maps at scales from 1:25,000 to 1:100,000 from the Revolutions of 1917 to the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. The nature of the maps inherited by the Soviet Union from Imperial Russia, and the prototype maps of the 1920s and 30s are described. These are contrasted with these with those of the Great Patriotic War and of the post-war period. The designs of Soviet topographic maps were continually changing, and great contrasts exist between maps made in the USSR at different dates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]