The Soviet military 1:10,000 City Plan of Dover, UK (1974)

The full extent of the Soviet global military mapping project is yet to be revealed and only limited information has been gleaned from studies of the maps themselves (e.g., Davies and 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 Today, however, their popular appeal transcends their value as historical documents.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.