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Northern Sea Route “Aged” by Four Centuries
How Patrushev turned an industry holiday into a nationwide jubilee
In March 2025, Vladimir Putin issued a decree titled “On the Celebration of the 500th Anniversary of Russia’s Exploration of the Northern Sea Route.” He tasked his longtime ally and shipbuilding advisor, Nikolai Patrushev—head of the Maritime Board—with organizing the celebrations.
All Arctic regions, Rosatom, the Russian Geographical Society, numerous academic institutions, and Orthodox organizations are involved in the festivities. So is it fair to say that the Northern Sea Route’s anniversary has brought together a closed circle of Patrushev’s old acquaintances? Arktida looked into why the “500th Anniversary of the Northern Sea Route” is being celebrated now—and who’s writing the script for the festivities.
What the NSR Jubilee Looks Like
The centerpiece of the anniversary celebrations is a project called “The Great Northern Campaign: The Arctic as Art,” and preparations for it began well before the presidential decree. As early as late 2023, the concept was presented at the international exhibition-forum “Russia.”
On March 26, 2025, at another forum—“The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue”—Nikolai Patrushev officially announced the launch of the project, emphasizing its mission: “to preserve the historical memory of Russian scientists, explorers, and pioneers.”
The Maritime Board’s press office noted that the project's main goal is “to convey the historical importance of the Arctic and the Northern Sea Route in the shaping of Russian statehood—through the language of art.” It’s “not just a cultural initiative,” they said, but a “subtle tool for interregional and international dialogue.”
The first phase of this “subtle tool” includes events in regions along the Northern Sea Route, though related activities are being held at state institutions across the country. From the Russian Far East to the European part of the country, there are book exhibits, lectures, and film screenings for audiences interested in “the history, potential, and future development of the Northern Sea Route.” Among the organizers are the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, local museum, a business academy, and the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society.
Educational websites are publishing dozens of lesson plans and event templates for libraries and schools, all themed around the “500th Anniversary of the NSR.” Even preschoolers are being introduced to the geography of the route and the unique aspects of the northern fleet. For example, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, a preschool lesson plan for older children includes building a model shipyard for the Northern Sea Route using construction toys. The goal? To teach kids how to distinguish between tankers, dry cargo ships, icebreakers, and “coal carriers.”
Major business events haven’t been left out either: at the 2025 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), a special session was held titled “The Maritime Route Along Russia’s Northern Coast: 500 Years of History.”
Ice Recon: Who's Behind the Anniversary Project
The driving force behind “The Great Northern Campaign: The Arctic as Art” is said to be the nonprofit Center for Arctic Initiatives (ANO "Arctic Initiatives Center"). The organization was founded in 2019 by Andrey Patrushev, son of Nikolai Patrushev. A former FSB officer and ex-head of offshore projects at Gazprom Neft, Andrey was replaced in 2024 by Rustam Romanenkov, a lawyer and former colleague from Gazpromneft Shelf. In his new role, Romanenkov signed an agreement with the deputy minister for the Development of the Russian Far East to implement the “Great Northern Campaign.”
Even before the presidential decree, Romanenkov had been discussing the project with Sergey Stepashin, head of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IOPS). Stepashin, the FSB’s first-ever director, worked with the elder Patrushev in the 2000s while serving as Chairman of the Accounts Chamber. Today, alongside Nikolai’s other son, Dmitry, he participates in restoring wooden churches.
Their shared interest in religious architecture is well documented. Patrushev Sr. personally financed the construction of a church in honor of St. Platon of Studion in the village where his father, also named Platon, was born, and a chapel dedicated to the martyr Antonina—on the site of his mother Antonina’s childhood home. The IOPS portrays itself as a “custodian of imperial traditions” and a network for Russia’s “new nobility.” Patriarch Kirill chairs the society’s Honorary Committee; the group traces its origins back to the reign of Alexander III, and among its founders it lists Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod.
It’s no surprise, then, that the Maritime Board’s press release marking the launch of “The Great Northern Campaign” emphasizes the following: “To truly develop the Arctic regions, a sense of shared spiritual values and tradition is essential.”
The Arctic Initiatives Center also signed a separate agreement with the Russian Geographical Society headed by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu. Meanwhile, a major exhibition planned for the end of the year at the Tretyakov Gallery is being overseen by museum director Elena Pronicheva—daughter of General Vladimir Pronichev, one of the top commanders during the 2002 Dubrovka hostage crisis. Pronichev worked closely with Patrushev at the FSB for many years, first in Karelia, then in the agency’s central office, where he served as Patrushev’s deputy.
410 Years in Just Three: Patrushev’s Jubilee Math
Official materials related to the anniversary trace the origins of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) back to 1525. According to TASS, that’s when Russian diplomat Dmitry Gerasimov first floated the idea of using the Northeast Passage for maritime navigation. The next milestone is considered to be the Mangazeya Sea Route—a trading path from the mouth of the Northern Dvina River to Mangazeya, located in what is now the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
In 1619, Tsar Mikhail Romanov banned navigation along the route. That ban is often reinterpreted through today’s political lens. As Rossiyskaya Gazeta put it, “Historians believe the tsar feared espionage and the corrupting influence of greedy English sailors, who were also plotting to colonize the North.” The actual decree provides a more layered rationale: “to prevent losses to the state treasury in duties” if merchants “travel by the Great Sea and start trading with Germans or with Russians in secret”—and “so that… German men do not learn the way to Mangazeya and do not go there.”
As for the year 1525, one of the earliest references linking Gerasimov’s geographic ideas to the Northern Sea Route appears in the 1952 book Russian Seafarers in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, published by the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (Glavsevmorput).
The choice of that year as the starting point for the current jubilee echoes the historical narrative developed by Glavsevmorput and effectively ties today’s Maritime Board—and Patrushev’s ambitions—to the Soviet-era super-agency that he now draws inspiration from.
Interestingly, the previous NSR anniversary was celebrated just three years ago. In 2022, Arctic and maritime authorities marked the 90th anniversary of the NSR, commemorating the 1932 founding of Glavsevmorput and the expedition led by Otto Schmidt, which completed the first-ever one-season transit of the route. That year became the official point of reference for the NSR’s “modern” history—as a navigable passage from European Russia to the Far East through the seas of the Arctic Ocean.
In 2022, Yuri Trutnev—now one of Patrushev’s allies on the Maritime Board—offered his congratulations on the anniversary. Minister for the Development of the Far East and Arctic Alexei Chekunkov, who’s currently negotiating with the Tretyakov Gallery for this year’s exhibition, spoke at the ceremonial conference. That round of celebrations also included various events, but they were far more modest in scale.
While the 2022 anniversary was pegged to a more widely accepted historical date, it remained a niche, industry-specific event that went largely unnoticed outside professional circles. There’s no indication the organizers of the current jubilee were even aware of the earlier one when planning theirs. This time, however, the celebrations have taken on a full-blown national scope.
The difference can be explained not just by the shifting political climate, but also by the fact that Nikolai Patrushev himself is now chairing the organizing committee. The jubilee has been packaged as his personal initiative—a kind of “festival of the Arctic’s master and chief shipbuilder.”
Against the backdrop of Arctic sovereignty campaigns and the emergence of a new state ideology, the rhetoric about “spiritual values” and the use of cultural projects as a form of soft power becomes especially revealing. It highlights how even eccentric, highly personal initiatives—when paired with the right historical moment—can end up mobilizing the entire country, from officials to schoolchildren and preschoolers, to go “play ships.”
Cover photo: maks_ph / Shutterstock / Fotodom
