in july 2004, the saint petersburg-based baltic shipyard won an international tender for the construction of two 16-megawatt diesel-electric icebreakers for rosmorport, a state-owned company established in 2003 to manage russia's port infrastructure and operate its fleet of diesel-powered icebreakers. although the shipyard had built five "arktika"-class nuclear-powered icebreakers in 1975–1992 and had the sixth under construction at the time, these would be the first non-nuclear icebreakers built on a russian shipyard in over three decades and the first new icebreakers ordered following the dissolution of the soviet union. while the state budget did not initially allocate funding for the new icebreakers, the construction was nonetheless set to begin already in 2004 and the lead ship was to be delivered by november 2006.