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 "Arktika" was withdrawn from service in 2008 after clocking up 175,000 hours of reactor operation time and covering more than 1 million nautical miles.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".
Icebreaker
The world's first diesel-electric icebreaker was the 4,330-ton Swedish icebreaker in 1933. At divided between two propellers in the stern and one propeller in the bow, she remained the most powerful Swedish icebreaker until the commissioning of in 1957. "Ymer" was followed by the Finnish , the first diesel-electric icebreaker in Finland, in 1939. Both vessels were decommissioned in the 1970s and replaced by much larger icebreakers in both countries, the 1976-built in Finland and the 1977-built in Sweden.