On December 5, 1957, the nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin was launched from the slips of the Leningrad Shipyard — the world’s first surface vessel and the first civilian ship ever equipped with a nuclear propulsion system. During its thirty years of service, it significantly expanded navigation in northern latitudes and escorted 3,741 transport vessels through the ice.
A symbol of the Soviet Union’s technological and scientific triumph in mastering the peaceful atom, Lenin was visited by Yuri Gagarin, future U.S. President Richard Nixon, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and Fidel Castro. In the mess hall finished in Karelian birch, the piano was once played by Alexandra Pakhmutova.
Having once surged ahead, Russia continues to hold the lead in nuclear icebreaker technology. The latest embodiment of this tradition — built in a distinctly Russian style — is the icebreaker Arktika, the largest and most powerful nuclear icebreaker in the world, now in active service.
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