
The USSR covertly mapped American and European cities - jonbaer
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/10/maps-soviet-union-ussr-military-secret-mapping-spies/
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dogma1138
Every military and intelligence outfit has their own mapping unit why is this
exactly surprising?

The only reason why these maps gathered any attention is that funny enough
they were actually use by some western companies as they were effectively
either very cheap or without any royalties at all while most western maps are
a copyright hell that would cost you a fortune to even look at.

The article also seems to glance over a lot of the inaccuracies that ended up
in the soviet maps including made up places from movies and other popular
culture.

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jaggajasoos33
When it comes to topographic maps of Kashmir the USSR maps have been cheaper
(and outdated). The indian government keeps their maps secret.

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dogma1138
Most governments keep their most accurate maps secret, especially maps that
include terrain and soil traversability information.

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tacon
A while ago, maybe the 80s, I remember reading something like a magazine
article about a reporter visiting the Soviet Union for some human interest
story or similar. Soviet cities were notorious for not having useful maps
available. Somehow the reporter knew a US military attache and he said not to
worry, he'd bring along his own maps and everything was easy. It made sense to
me at the time, but now I wonder how available such US military maps were to
visiting friends. Maybe the US version of the consumer city map was so non-
strategic that they were easily available.

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flavio81
> _Soviet cities were notorious for not having useful maps available._

This article expands on this topic. Surprising!

[http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/03/world/soviet-aide-
admits-m...](http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/03/world/soviet-aide-admits-maps-
were-faked-for-50-years.html)

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pvg
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15378422](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15378422)

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kw71
For those interested in finding maps, the book's author has published
[https://www.sovietmaps.com/resources](https://www.sovietmaps.com/resources)

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bob_theslob646
The links are dead on the site, FYI.

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SQL2219
Talk about a ton of effort that would quickly be obsolete.

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rtkwe
Infrastructure like roads tend to not change that regularly and once it's
built it's there and won't change for quite a few years. They might be missing
newer roads but knowing about a portion of the roads would still be useful for
planning movement and logistics even if there might be a newer better route.

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SQL2219
...down to the heights of houses and types of businesses. Google street view
can't even keep up with this.

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lightedman
Street view, no. Google Earth Pro, yes. And that's free.

