Third Reefer with Russian Pink Salmon bound for St. Petersburg via Northern Sea Route

Before the end of August a third reefer is to leave Kamchatka for St. Petersburg. Meanwhile ETA of tramper «Kommunary Nikolajeva» to St. Petersburg is scheduled for 28 August current, while M/V Kapitan Pryakha is to arrive to the northern capital on September 2, according to http://www.megafishnet.com/.

The first shiploads of salmon products from the Russian Far East are on the way to St. Petersburg port (normally Russia's main port of entry for imported fish) via the Northern Sea Route (also known as Northeast Passage) as opposed to the usual practice of shipping from Vladivostok by the railway.

Tramper «Kommunary Nikolajeva» with 4725 MT of pink salmon caught this year at East Kamchatka was fully loaded by "Russian Sea" Company.  The second vessel (Kapitan Pryakha) with 4864 MT is also under way West.  

The company has tried this route before and believes that economics of this route from Kamchatka is much better than one via Vladivostok and further by railway. 

There are plans to deliver 43 000 MT of salmon by this route this year only. The experiment is strongly supported by Rosrybolovstvo (Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency).

Northern Sea Route

According to Wikipedia, The Northern Sea Route (Russian: Severnyy morskoy put', shortened to Sevmorput' ) is a shipping lane officially defined by Russian legislation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean specifically running along the Russian Arctic coast from Murmansk on the Barents Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait and Far East. The entire route lies in Arctic waters and parts are free of ice for only two months per year.