quality:correction, structural:scholar_edition
Northern Sea Route

A similar route to the NEP is the Northern Sea Route (NSR). The NSR is a shipping route that administratively begins at the boundary between the Barents and Kara Seas (the Kara Strait) and ends in the Bering Strait (Cape Dezhnev). The length of the Northern Sea Route from the Kara Gates to Provideniya Bay is about 5600 km. The distance from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok through the NSR is over 14 thousand km (for comparison, the same distance through the Suez Canal is over 23 thousand km). The Northern Sea Route serves the Arctic ports and major rivers of Siberia by importing fuel, equipment, food and exporting timber and minerals. The Suez or Panama Canal are the alternatives to the Northern Sea Route. However, if the distance from the port of Murmansk (Russia) to the port of Yokohama (Japan) through the Suez Canal is 12,840 nautical miles, the same itinerary along the Northern Sea Route equals only 5,770 nautical miles.

Therefore, the NEP encompasses all the East Arctic seas, and the NSR all the seas except the Barents Sea. Since the NSR constitutes the majority of the NEP, sometimes the term NSR has been used to refer to the entirety of the NEP.