Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route
The Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (Russian: Главное Управление Северного Морского Пути, romanized: Glavnoe upravlenie Severnogo morskogo puti), also known as Glavsevmorput or GUSMP (Russian: ГУСМП), was a Soviet government organization in charge of the maritime Northern Sea Route, established in January 1932 and dissolved in 1964.
History
The organization traces its roots to AO Komseverput (
Glavsevmorput, in addition to running Arctic shipping, also became the
However, the season of 1937, through a combination of unrealistic plans, bad weather and bad luck, proved a disaster.[3] Twenty-five of 64 ships dispatched on the route (many of them not fit for Arctic conditions) were trapped with crews and cargoes in the Arctic winter; one, Rabochiy, sank.[2] The débâcle, which coincided with the Great Purge of 1936–1938, led to a string of arrests; at least 673[4] Glavsevmorput personnel were arrested in a domino-effect NKVD operation. The oversized organization was streamlined and stripped of auxiliary functions that were delegated to Dalstroy (land facilities) and to the State trading company Gostorg (foreign trade). Glavsevmorput was to concentrate exclusively on maintaining the Northern Sea Route, specifically running its coastal shipping line.
Otto Schmidt, previously a high-profile public figure, was spared but demoted to scientific duties; overall management of the organization was reassigned to Ivan Papanin, a famous polar explorer. Papanin's first season, 1939, was a relatively safe and successful one; the Northern Sea Route had become a functioning regular line, rather than a dangerous experiment.[5]
In 1953 the organization, previously enjoying the status of a national ministry, was downgraded to a department of the Merchant Fleet ministry. In 1964 the department was dissolved and its units divided amongst the
A large island at the mouth of the
See also
Notes
References
- Barr, W. The Drift of Lenin's Convoy in the Laptev Sea, 1937–1938. Arctic, v.33 no.1 (March 1980) p. 4-20 [1] Archived 2011-05-24 at the Wayback Machine
- Barr, W. The First Soviet Convoy to the Mouth of the Lena. Arctic, v.35 no.2 (June 1982) p. 317-325 [2]
- On Russian explorations: [3]
- 75 years of Northern Sea Route (75 лет Северному морскому пути. Пресс-релиз. ААНИИ, 21.02.2008. Arctic and Antarctic Institute[permanent dead link])
- Biography of G.A. Ushakov Archived 2011-07-25 at the Wayback Machine 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 0-19-511436-1 [4]
- Red Arctic. Reviewed by Eva-Maria Stolberg. In Search of a Soviet Klondike in the Tundra. [5]