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). Museum exhibitions along with films were mobilized during the period of cultural revolution for a fundamental reform, which aimed to transform them into political-educational institutions accessible and attractive to the broadest masses of the population (Chlenova, 2017 ). In 1932, the ice-ship Malygin was the first ship to navigate along the Siberian coast in one season. This led to the establishment of a new central governing body for the Soviet Arctic, ‘The Main Administration of the Northern Sea Route’. Sea ice along this
interest in the Arctic and its active role in the region's geopolitics can be explained by the strategic importance of the northern sea route and its desire for Arctic fossil fuels. The Arctic is one of the world's most important untapped hydrocarbon resources and even tighter control over Arctic resources would mean a continuity of fossil fuel flows and therefore the political economy and power relations they sustain. In 2016, the Arctic region was the source of approximately 20 per cent of Russia's crude oil and 80 per cent of its natural gas (Simola and Solanko
answers. How the contest between the Euro-Atlantic community and Russia evolves and what are the possible shifts in the Russian political landscape through the mid-2020s are only the most prominent and obvious. But there are others – to what extent can shifts in the political landscape lead to real, substantive change? Would a different leader change Moscow’s intent to develop the Northern Sea Route, for
and loss of power and control among those who are adversely affected by its melting and exploitation. Further evidence can be found in the chapter by Julia Lajus and Ruth McLennan who explore Soviet era museum representations of ice conquest. A half century after the imperial glaciology in Central Asia, the Soviet state set up grand research institutes and launched ice breakers and airborne research teams into the high Arctic. This was part of a strategic and economic agenda to establish the Northern Sea Route, but it was also part of a propaganda industry to build