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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]