Nuclear-powered icebreaker
On 17 August 1977, NS "Arktika" ("Arctic") became the first surface ship ever to reach the North Pole. "Arktika" was withdrawn from service in 2008 after clocking up 175,000 hours of reactor operation time and covering more than 1 million nautical miles. Rather than be scrapped, there are calls for her to be converted to a museum ship, like her predecessor "Lenin".
Jääkarhu
Being one of the last large steam-powered icebreakers in active service, "Sibiryakov" was used in a 1960s Soviet documentary film to represent the steam-powered icebreaker, "Yermak", which had been broken up in 1964. She was also used in the 1969 Soviet/Italian film "The Red Tent" to represent another Soviet icebreaker, "Krasin", which had participated in the rescue mission of Umberto Nobile and other survivors of the crash of airship "Italia" in 1928. While the original 1917-built icebreaker was still in service at that time, her extensive rebuilding in 1953–1960 had changed the look of the vessel completely and thus a more traditional-looking icebreaker was needed for the role.