Mikhail Konstantinovich Sidorov and the role of Norwegians in the opening up of the Northern Sea Route to Siberia (Michail Konstantinovich Sidorov i rolij norvezesev v osvoenii Severnogo Morskogo Putii)

Abstract

In this article the authors examine the activity of the Russian public figure, the goldmining entrepreneur and employer M.K. Sidorov and his relationship with Norwegian shipowners and marine mammal hunters, engaged in sealing and walrus hunting in the area around Novaya Zemlya and in the Kara Sea. In the 1860s and 1870s M.K. Sidorov tried to carry through a largescale project for the opening up of the Northern Sea Route to Siberia (“the Kara Sea Route”), in the course of which he encouraged Norwegians to take part in his plans for developing this sea route. At the same time he was worried about and warned the Russian government against the economic expansionism of the Norwegians in Russian waters. Sidorov did not succeed in establishing a partnership with the Norwegian marine mammal hunters. Nevertheless, in the course of their constant search for sea mammals they unintentionally came to contribute their mite to the realisation of this project, because they through their crossing of the Kara Sea in all directions effectively shattered the myth that existed at the time in maritime circles about the unnavigability of the Kara Sea. M.K. Sidorov did not succeed in opening up the Northern Sea Route to Siberia, but his efforts were not in vain. He was the first to put his question on the agenda in Russia, and already by the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century followers appeared, among whom were Russians (Vice admiral S.O. Makarov, mayor of the city Yeniseysk S.V. Vostrotin and others), as well as Norwegians (among them the entrepreneur and businessman Jonas Lied, and the polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen). Together they moved the Northern Sea Route to Siberia a long step forward in the direction of a feasible sea route – on the eve of the Russian revolution of 1917.