ABSTRACT
When Soviet planners at the beginning of the thirties were working on the development of the North they realistically assumed that much of the equipment, building materials, consumer goods and so forth would be shipped from Leningrad, Moscow, and the upper Volga via the Northern Sea Route. This assumption had some validity at the end of the NEP and the beginning of the First Five-Year Plan, when industry in southern Siberia had just started to expand and transportation facilities on the northern reaches of the Siberian rivers were still rudimentary. The export of lumber took on particular importance for the Northern Sea Route toward the end of the First Five-Year Plan. Efforts to prove the economic advantage of through voyages on the Northern Sea Route between Murmansk and Vladivostok boomeranged from the start. Shipments of grain from Leningrad to Vladivostok on the vessels “Iskra” and “Vanzetti” in 1935 had discouraging results: Direct expenditures amounted to over 275 rubles per ton.
