White Sea mostly targeting harp seal, ringed seal, herring, saffron cod, European smelt, Atlantic cod and Atlantic salmon. There is a developing seaweed industry. The White Sea is an important traffic centre of northwestern Russia, interconnecting various economic regions and providing an outlet to the foreign routes. The White Sea–Baltic Canal links it through Lake Onega to the Baltic Sea and the major city and port of Saint Petersburg. The Baltic Sea, in turn, is connected by the Volga–Baltic Waterway to the Volga River, Black, Caspian, and Azov seas. The major ports on the White Sea are Arkhangelsk, Belomorsk, Onega, Mezen, Kem,
Arkhangelsk Oblast the 1970s and is expected to become part of the Belkomur project — a railway line connecting Arkhangelsk via the Komi Republic with the Perm Krai and the Ural mountains. Almost the entire rail network belongs to the Northern Railway, which west of Onega connects to the Oktyabrskaya Railway. There is also a railway line from Severoonezhsk west to Yangory (an extension of the line from Puksa to Navolok), which belongs to the Department of Corrections. A big number of narrow gauge railways have been built in the 1950s and 1960s to facilitate the transport of timber, but since then