Arktika-class icebreaker
The "Arktika" class is a Russian (former Soviet) class of nuclear-powered icebreakers. Formerly known as "Project 10520 nuclear-powered icebreaker", they were the largest and most powerful icebreakers until the 2016 launch of the ship named Arktika. Ships of the "Arktika" class are owned by the federal government, but were operated by the Murmansk Shipping Company (MSCO) until 2008, when they were transferred to the fully government-owned operator Atomflot. Of the ten civilian nuclear-powered vessels built by Russia (and the Soviet Union), six have been of this type. They are used for escorting merchant ships in the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia as well as for scientific and recreational expeditions to the Arctic.
Icebreaker
With its rounded shape and strong metal hull, the Russian of 1864 was an important predecessor of modern icebreakers with propellers. The ship was built on the orders of merchant and shipbuilder Mikhail Britnev. It had the bow altered to achieve an ice-clearing capability (20° raise from keel line). This allowed "Pilot" to push herself on the top of the ice and consequently break it. Britnev fashioned the bow of his ship after the shape of old Pomor boats, which had been navigating icy waters of the White Sea and Barents Sea for centuries. "Pilot" was used between 1864–1890 for navigation in the Gulf of Finland between Kronstadt and Oranienbaum thus extending the summer navigation season by several weeks. Inspired by the success of "Pilot", Mikhail Britnev built a second similar vessel "Boy" ("Breakage" in Russian) in 1875 and a third "Booy" ("Buoy" in Russian) in 1889.
The cold winter of 1870–1871 caused the Elbe River and the port of Hamburg to freeze over, causing a prolonged halt to navigation and huge commercial losses. Carl Ferdinand Steinhaus resused the altered bow "Pilot"s design from Britnev to make his own icebreaker, "Eisbrecher I".
The first true modern sea-going icebreaker was built at the turn of the 20th century. Icebreaker , was built in 1897 at the Armstrong Whitworth naval yard in England under contract from the Imperial Russian Navy. The ship borrowed the main principles from "Pilot" and applied them to the creation of the first polar icebreaker, which was able to run over and crush pack ice. The ship displaced 5,000 tons, and its steam-reciprocating engines delivered . The ship decommissioned and scrapped in 1963, making it one of the longest serving icebreakers in the world.