★ A lane that will redraw the world map! The frozen Arctic shortcut is quietly deciding the future of global trade with every icebreaker crunch.
★ Russia’s top Arctic historian teams up with an award-winning naval artist—dazzling pictures + time-machine storytelling that make the “Ice Silk Road” crystal-clear.
★ 400-year depth: from first daring sail to today’s nuclear convoys—glory, tragedy, and tomorrow’s possibilities.
★ Bonus “ice-road board game” for kids—parents can sneak in first seeds of trade, geopolitics, and great-power chess.
★ Read-and-up age: upper-primary to junior-high.

The Northern Sea Route—one of the most weighty and unusual shipping lanes on Earth. For centuries people dreamed of fleets gliding along this icy highway, of the harsh North yielding its treasures. Generation after generation of mariners, explorers, and pioneers laid the foundations with stubborn courage; many died in the drifting ice so their children could sail on open water.

This book tracks the “first route” that stitches Atlantic to Pacific across the top of the world. Four hundred years of heroism, disaster, politics, and cutting-edge tech—every inch of ice conquered, every promise still waiting.

About the Authors
Mikhail Savinov – Ph.D. in History, researcher at the Arctic Technology History Museum exhibition center, longtime “Sea Column” contributor to the children’s magazine Koster. Co-author of *Icebreaker Krasin: A Photographic History*.

Andrey Tron – born 1960 in Leningrad into a naval-officer family; staff artist at the Central Naval Museum since 1984, chief artist 1990-2000. Has curated 20+ exhibitions and illustrated naval publications. Works focus on historical reconstruction; pieces held by the Central Naval Museum, Suvorov Museum, International Maritime Museum (Hamburg), Royal Danish Naval Museum, and the private collection of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Awarded “Merited Artist of the Russian Federation” in 2004.

-Sailing to China through the Pole!
-Mangazeya Trail
-Cape of Necessity
-A Prize for Brave Captains
-The Vega Drops Anchor
-Raising the Flag on Unknown Shores
-Icebreakers of the Age of Sail
-Chelyuskin: Calamity and Glory
-Eastbound, Westbound
-The Arctic in Flames
-Naval Command Post on Ice
-Conquerors of the Ice
-The Atomic Era
-Today’s Arctic Route