ARKHANGELSK, October 12 (Itar-Tass) — The building of the first automobile road, which is to link the Nenets Autonomous Area (NAA) with other regions of the country, is to be completed in 2014. The route stretches from Naryan-Mar, the center of NAA, to the town of Usinsk, the oil capital of the Komi Republic. It remains to finalize the building of only 83 kilometres out of the 386-km road.
The Naryan-Mar - Usinsk road is a highly important land transport infrastructure facility for the development of the Arctic zone of Russia. This vast territory encompasses fully or partially the Republic of Yakutia, Murmansk and Arkhandgelsk Regions, Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Nenets, Yamalo-Nenets, and Chukotka Autonomous Areas, as well as lands and islands in the Arctic Ocean and the continental shelf of the Russian Federation. It accounts for 12-15 percent of Russia's gross domestic product and for about one-quarter of exports.
The Arctic zone accounts for more than 80 percent of Russian gas production, a considerable amount of diamonds, 100 percent of antimony, apatite, phlogopite (a magnesium mica), vermiculite, barytes, rare metals, over 95 percent of metals of platinum group, over 90 percent of nickel and cobalt, 60 percent of copper, over one-third of the entire amount of fish and marine products of Russia.
The NAA territory affords the Timano-Pechora oil and gas province where a large-scale raw materials base for the gas industry has been established.
At the same time, NAA is Russia's only region which lacks a permanent overland transportation link with other regions. It does not have available either a railway or automobile transport. Contact with other cities of Russia is maintained either by air or by water -- during a short summer navigation. In winter, snow-covered trails are the only pathways in NAA.