Dublin, as you’ve not seen it before. Spurred on from a post on boards.ie, I started to take a look into the USSR’s mapping of the world and was pretty dumbstruck by what I came across. At one stage, it is reckoned that the Soviet had upwards of 40, 000 cartographers and surveyors working on mapping the world in detail of 1:100,000 and some cities, including Dublin, in detail of 1: 10,000.
The Dublin map was compiled in the early 1970’s and spanned four pages. The purpose for the maps was to forward plan for a worst case scenario, should an invasion need to take place. As “places of interest,” The GPO, King’s Inns on Constitution Hill, The Four Courts, Trinity College, The Old Parliament Building on College Green and the Royal College of Surgeons are marked. Oddly enough, Leinster House and Dublin Castle go unnoticed.
Part of me just loves the fact that they picked the College of Surgeons, Four Courts and the GPO. Who knows, if they extended the map out further, would they have marked Mount Street Bridge, Bolands Mills and the South Dublin Union? Maybe Joseph Mary Plunkett’s plans weren’t so outlandish; that the sites marked for strategic importance in Easter Week remain every bit as important for military planners now. Either that or the Russians had some sentimental Stickies on their payroll. Its a scary thought.
For Maps and further reading, check out: http://sovietmaps.com/
Click on the book for more.
Click on the book for more.
Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Come Here To Me! 
Great post. Seen something before on this, must see if I can find the link.
great post!
One thing I find particularly interesting is the fact that the tram lines are still marked on this map (lines down the middle of roads, with regular crossbars) even though they would have been decommissioned long before.
[…] An eventful start to the year, with Unlock Nama’s Occupation, finding out that Soviet Russia mapped Dublin in Cyrillic, a continuation of the “A Few Quick Snaps” series, as I tried my shot at photography […]