Over the years the Northern Sea Route has played an important role in transports - especially for the Northern areas of Russia, which in the past decades showed a key strategic role for the country. Russia started to build up a polar transport capability already a hundred years ago. The steam icebreaker "Yermak" was built in 1899 and was taken by Admiral Makarov already the same year to Spitzbergen and in 1901 to Franz Josefs Land. After the World War II the Russian Government decided for improved cargo fleets and new icebreakers for the massive development of the huge natural resources in the North, The need for new ships and new powerful polar icebreakers along the Northern Sea Route called for introduction of nuclear power for propulsion systems, new cold resistant steel and other materials. In this way remarkable steps in the world's icebreaker development were achieved.
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