Riches lie below the waters of Russia’s Arctic

RUSSIA’S LARGEST component republic is Yakutia. It extends well into the Arctic Circle and is as big as Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland and Romania combined, but with a population of just 1m people. Over the past decade retreating sea ice has opened up a new shipping lane along its coast, the Northern Sea Route (NSR). This is the shortest passage between the ports of east Asia and western Europe, but its icy waters also offer something even more precious: geological bounty, in the form of cobalt, tin and rare-earth metals, deep below the surface.