Economic and geopolitical aspects of developing the Northern Sea Route

The present paper is devoted to define contemporary essence and logic of developing the Northern Sea Route (NSR) for the near future of Russia and beyond. A global nature of such upcoming processes as melting the Polar Ice Cap, depletion of readily available oil/gas reserves (causing a rise in prices on such commodities) and emerging confrontation between interests of circumpolar countries and non-circumpolar countries (on the background of a fast-growing economic and military power of latter and an ambiguity of legal status of using the Arctic space and its mineral resources) is defined. The features of Russian developing the NSR are historically and logically depicted and a decisive role of state political decisions and investments concerning the NSR is shown. The topological model of Russian Siberian-Arctic infrastructure grid where the NSR serves as its backbone is proposed. The said model and comparing data between domestic and transit turnover of cargo through the NSR have reinforced the hypothesis of the special importance of domestic functions of the NSR. A SWOT-matrix permitting to describe a current situation and future scenarios for the NSR is presented. The findings of the study allowed defining limitations and a vector of future research.