SOVIET MILITARY MAPPING: THEN AND NOW 

An event in partnership with Pushkin House

During the Cold War, the Military Topographic Directorate of the General Staff of the Soviet Army conducted a secret mapping programme with a high level of detail and coverage for almost the entire globe. The true extent of the Soviet cartographic enterprise is yet to emerge, but it is clear that this was the most comprehensive global topographic mapping project ever undertaken, with entire continents mapped at the scale of 1:200,000 or larger. In addition, over 2,000 towns and cities were mapped in street-level detail, including London. More recently, Soviet maps have been used in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - a stark reminder of their enduring relevance.

This talk, by the authors of The Red Atlas: How the Soviet Union Secretly Mapped the World, will explore the Soviet maps of Britain and elsewhere, looking at the quality of the information depicted and considering the interpretative achievements of the cartographers who produced them.

Dr Alexander Kent has been researching Soviet maps for over 20 years and has published widely in his roles as Reader in Cartography and Geographic Information Science at Canterbury Christ Church University and as Editor of The Cartographic Journal. A former President of the British Cartographic Society, he is currently the Chair of the UK Cartography Committee and of the International Cartographic Association’s Commission on Topographic Mapping.

John Davies is a life-long map collector and enthusiast. He encountered Soviet mapping whilst working in Latvia in early 2000s. Since retiring from a career in Information Systems he has been writing and lecturing about these maps and was until recently editor of Sheetlines, the journal of The Charles Close Society for the Study of Ordnance Survey Maps. He lives in London and runs the website sovietmaps.com