The Soviet military 1:10,000 city plan of Dover, UK (1974)

Abstract

Maps stimulate our minds and our senses. The best maps force us to stop, gaze, and to rethink the way we see their subject, often through their powerful combination of a new perspective with a new aesthetic. Some cartographic encounters, however, also transform the map. There has hardly been a greater demonstration of the ‘afterlife’ ofmaps than those produced in secrecy by the General Staff of the Soviet Union as they emerged from the collapse of the USSR. They have since been used in a range of contexts, from supporting the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 (Lee & Shumakov, 2003) to art exhibitions in the UK (Gec, 2019). The full extent of Soviet globalmilitarymappingproject is yet to be revealed andonly limited informationhasbeengleaned fromstudies of themaps themselves (e.g. Davies&Kent, 2017). Today, however, their popular appeal transcends their value as historical documents. Soviet military maps present an unrealized vision of the world to the Western imagination – an unthinkable prospect to the cartographers who made them during the Cold War. This short paper outlines the Soviet military global mapping project and focuses on the city plan of Dover (UK) – a town local to the author – to offer a personal view of how Soviet military maps may be regarded as supreme examples of cartographic design with an enduring power to fascinate. Discussions concerning the wider rationale for the maps, assessments of national coverage, and more detailed analyses of individual sheets are to be found elsewhere (e.g. Kent & Davies, 2013; Davies & Kent, 2017; Davis & Kent, 2017; Kent et al., 2019; Cruickshank, 2020; and Svenningsen & Perner, 2020.)