Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route

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The Northern Sea Route between Europe and the Pacific

The Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (Главное Управление Северного Морского Пути), was known as Glavsevmorput' for the first syllables of its Russian name. It was also known as GUSMP, its Russian acronym.

This directorate was a special governing body for the Administration of the Northern Sea Route and was set up in 1932 during the Stalin era. Arctic explorer Otto Schmidt became its first director. Initially the Glavsevmorput' supervised navigation and built Arctic ports, but later it also became the Soviet agency for exploiting resources across the far north and for the coordination of supplies and transport. Its aim was to contribute to the development of northern coastal Siberia.

Between 1936 and 1938, owing to Stalin's random terror tactics, Glavsevmorput' began to decay. By then the Northern Sea Route Agency managed railway traffic to Vladivostok and shipping from there to Magadan. Over the years, however, Dalstroy (Far North Construction Trust), another Soviet agency set up by the NKVD, had grown more powerful. Dalstroy's director Eduard Berzin had even obtained ships of his own so as to have more freedom of action. By 1938, when Glavsevmorput' lost much of its political support, the more sinister Dalstroy was firmly in control. Competent administrators and scientists were replaced by opportunists and survivors, so that the initial idealism and efficiency that drove the directorate gave way to confusion and incompetence. By 1939-1946, when Ivan Papanin succeeded Otto Schmidt as the head of the directorate, Glavsevmorput' was mired in unsolvable problems.

During the 1990s, after the breakup of the USSR, commercial navigation in the Arctic went into decline. More or less regular shipping is presently to be found only from Murmansk to Dudinka in the west and between Vladivostok and Pevek in the east. Ports between Dudinka and Pevek see next to no shipping at all.

A large island at the mouth of the Kolyma River (Mikhalkino) was named "Glavsevmorput'" (or Gusmp Island) after the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route 69°30′N, 161°30′E).

[edit] References

William Barr (Arctic historian), The First Soviet Convoy to the Mouth of the Lena.
On Russian explorations: [1]
Biography of G.A. Ushakov at Polar World.
The Northern Sea Route at SHIP & OCEAN FOUNDATION
The discovery and history of exploration of the Northern Sea Route at The Russian State Museum of Arctic and Antarctic
John McCannon, Red Arctic, 1932-1939, ISBN 0195114361 [2]
"Red Arctic" Reviewed by Eva-Maria Stolberg. In Search of a Soviet Klondike in the Tundra. [3]
Glavsevmorput' Island: [4]