Two sets of maps
On the eve of the Second World War, the mapmaking administration was put under the control of the NKVD, the security police, and accurate maps became classified.[1][2] Maps for the public were distorted on purpose: roads and rivers moved, city districts tilted, streets drawn in the wrong places.[3] Closed cities were .[4]
Accurate maps still existed, but they were treated as state secrets.[1][3] Around the Mayak nuclear site, researchers later noticed that some 30 villages had disappeared from Soviet maps.[5]
The 1988 admission
In September 1988, during glasnost, Viktor Yashchenko, head of the state Geodesy and Cartography Administration, told Izvestia that nearly all public maps had been falsified since the 1930s. He blamed decades of “spy mania” and promised accurate maps for general use.[1][3] The republic, regional and district maps were to be reissued from 1991.[2]
This page will collect examples: before-and-after comparisons, the rules mapmakers worked under, and the places that were never drawn.
Sources
- “Official: Soviets deliberately falsified their maps.” UPI, 3 September 1988. www.upi.com
- “Soviet maps being corrected.” UPI, 3 September 1988. www.upi.com
- “Phony Soviet map making.” Deseret News, 19 September 1988. www.deseret.com
- “Closed city.” Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
- Lee, “Kyshtym Nuclear Accident.” Stanford University, PH241 coursework, 2016. large.stanford.edu
- “Snezhinsk.” Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org