50 Let Pobedy (50 Years of Victory)

[Isabelle Prondzynski]

I had never heard of this ship... but arrived there with amazement!

A page-a-day calendar I am using confronted me with the picture of a HUGE ship, and some explanatory text. And so, I had to look her up. Russian nuclear icebreaker, a cruise ship no less, taking passengers all the way to the North Pole while breaking ice up to 5 m thick at a speed of 17 knots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Let_Pobedy

A longer documentary for a whole voyage, which also shows the interiors, is here :

Extraordinary!

[Thomas Hypher]

Her and her sisters (not all in service anymore if I remember correctly) are fascinating - the most powerful icebreakers in the world by a long way!

[Chris Thompson]

Remember seeing a documentary about an American ice breaker going to the north pole, when they got there one of the Russian Nuclear breakers was there carrying a lot of Russian schoolkids.....who asked the Americans to their embarrassment ...."How come your ship is SO small?"

[Bruce Nicholls]

I had never heard of this ship... but arrived there with amazement!

A page-a-day calendar I am using confronted me with the picture of a HUGE ship, and some explanatory text. And so, I had to look her up. Russian nuclear icebreaker, a cruise ship no less, taking passengers all the way to the North Pole while breaking ice up to 5 m thick at a speed of 17 knots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Let_Pobedy

The longer film is the best "holiday video" I have ever seen. Well worth a view.

A longer documentary for a whole voyage, which also shows the interiors, is here :

Extraordinary!

[Chris Thompson]

I've always been interested in Russian ships, I visited the m/v Leonid Breshnev back in 1986, very soviet decor with lots of photos of Russian teens working on farms and in factories etc, plus an eternal flame memorial to the siege of Stalingrad!
Back in the 90's I was contracted to install a Casino on another Belorussiya class ship in the Bahamas.
These ships were very well built, burned up a bunch of drill bits trying to drill the decks to bolt down the slot cabinets! I notice that Wikipedia fails to mention that these ships were fully equipped with a Nuclear/Biological/Chemical washdown system, the onboard inventory included 500 NBC protective suits and 5 Geiger counters!!!! Plus there always seemed to be an excessive amount of Radio antennas!!

[Trevor Harris]

TS Maxim Gorkiy was a favorite.