Milestones

It will soon be a century since the NSR began to turn from a dangerous route for desperately brave researchers into a transport route of strategic economic importance for Russia and the world. Here are the main stages of its development

Photo: B. Utkin / Ogonyok photo archive

Photo: Sergey Khvorostov / TASS

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Photo: Photo chronicle TASS / TASS

Photo: Ogonyok photo archive

Photo: RIA NOVOSTI

Photo: B. Utkin / Ogonyok photo archive

Photo: Sergey Khvorostov / TASS

1919 The head of the Omsk government, Admiral Kolchak, a polar explorer himself, in 1919 established the Northern Sea Route Committee. The route was used for trade with the Entente countries. The committee was retained by Lenin and included in the Sibrevkom. Since 1921, regular Kara expeditions went from Arkhangelsk to the mouths of the Ob and Yenisei. Cars went to the east, bread went to the west.

1929 Soviet maritime transport, including in the North, is growing, but there is not enough fleet. Sovfracht is founded to charter foreign ships. In 1932, Otto Schmidt (pictured) navigated the Northern Sea Route for the first time in one navigation. Since 1935, freight transportation along the polar route has become regular.

1941 During the war, military cargo from the United States and Canada traveled along the Northern Sea Route and transported ships of the Soviet Pacific Fleet to the west. Here they were attacked by German submarines, and in 1942 even by a heavy cruiser. In the photo - the first Soviet linear icebreaker "Joseph Stalin" under the control of Chelyuskin captain Vladimir Voronin is leading a military transport through the ice.

1959 After the war, the Northern Sea Route becomes a busy internal highway of the USSR. On December 3, 1959, the first nuclear icebreaker in history, Lenin, was put into operation. Nuclear power changed sailing in the northern seas.

2007 In the 1990s, interest in the Arctic and the Northern Sea Route faded significantly and was revived only in the 2000s. In 2007, new development of the North was in full swing. This year, the Varandey oil terminal was completed in the Barents Sea, and the Russian expedition "Arctic 2007" planted the country's flag on the bottom under the North Pole.

Stages of the long journey