Northern Sea Route Northern Sea Route The Northern Sea Route (, "Severnyy morskoy put", shortened to Севморпуть, "Sevmorput") is a shipping route officially defined by Russian legislation as lying east of Novaya Zemlya and specifically running along the Russian Arctic coast from the Kara Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait. The entire route lies in Arctic waters and within Russia's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Parts are free of ice for only two months per year. The overall route on Russia's side of the Arctic between North Cape and the Bering Strait has been called the Northeast Passage, analogous to the Northwest Passage
Severnaya Zemlya During the days that followed Vilkitsky's expedition charted parts of the Laptev Sea coast of what they believed to be a single island. Barely six months later in early 1914, by order of the Secretary of the Imperial Navy, the new discovery was renamed "Emperor Nicholas II Land" (, "Zemlya Imperatora Nikolaya II"), after ruling Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. In 1926 the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR renamed the still not fully explored land "Severnaya Zemlya". In May 1928, an attempt was made by Umberto Nobile and his crew in the Airship Italia to overfly