The port of Arkhangelsk is more than 400 years old.

In 1584, Tsar Ivan the Terrible ruled to commence the construction of a port town in the mouth of the river Severnaya Dvina, thirty miles off the White Sea.
The northern land was rich in fur game, shipmast timber, hemp, resin, tar and other goods luring merchants from overseas.
In no matter of time, in 1585, the new port was called at by merchant ships from the Netherlands, Hamburg and England. Merchants from Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov rushed there.
The port town became the home spot of merchant marine and navy shipbuilding, Russian's first sea harbor which had played a big part in the development of an all-Russia market and of the foreign trade with Western Europe.
Until Petersburg was founded in 1703, Arkhangelsk remained the one and only sea port in Russia. To create a national Russian fleet, Tsar Peter I built Admiralty and a shipyard on the island of Solombala in 1693.
In the XVII century, trade through the port progressed significantly. Up to eight ships a year called at the port, and in the next century the number of calls reached 200 and over.
Towards the end of the XIX century, trade through the port kept.
Progressing, due to a growing demand for Russian timber, as well as owing to a rail line built between Archangelsk and Moscow (1898). The history of the sea port of Arkhangelsk is rich in revolutionary, military and labour deeds. The port has done great services to the country assisting polar ships of the first Arctic research and Northern Seaway expeditions. In the years of the First World War and the Great Patriotic War, the port was busy performing important tasks set by the Government, discharging caravans of ships.