ILLEGAL GOODS
The Cossacks and Arctic Coast Pomor sailor-traders were the first to harvest the riches of northeastern Siberia in the form of sable and sea otter furs. Later, Russian and American explorers found more exotic treasures: fossil mammoth ivory.

By 1900, native peoples in Chukotka and Yakutia were digging tons of mammoth ivory out of the permafrost and selling it to middlemen. Mammoth ivory is still exported today, though its collection and sale are tightly regulated. The trade is nonetheless frowned upon by archaeologists, who recognize the scientific importance of the fossil material.
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