PART II
SHIPS OF THE SOVIET UNION During its existence, the Soviet Union operated a large merchant fleet, early examples of which were illustrated in the June issue. This follow-up feature by Malcolm Cranfield looks at ships in operation from 1967 until 1991, when the Soviet Union was broken up.
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dmiral Sergei Gorshkov (1910-1988), who came to prominence following the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and subsequent fall of President Khrushchev, underlined that ‘a strong merchant fleet is an important element in the overall build-up of Soviet sea power’. New ships, many built in Soviet yards but with others sourced from Finland, Poland, East Germany and elsewhere, then transformed the Soviet Union into an important international trader. In the 1980 edition of his book ‘Soviet Merchant Ships’, Ambrose Greenway wrote that larger and more sophisticated
ships were being built, with an increased emphasis on ro-ro and bulk fleets, the latter including many vessels specifically designed for use in extreme northern latitudes, where a large part of the Soviet Union’s mineral resources were located. The Soviet Union’s merchant fleet had three other functions: to earn hard currency on international trades, to support the Navy, and to provide transportation of military and economic aid
cargoes to and from other communist nations, which had included North Vietnam, the People’s Republic of China and North Korea in the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1970s the Soviet Union also established several international cargo liner services, including Baltic Shipping Company of Leningrad’s Balt Atlantic service to North America. In May 1978 Balt Atlantic was accepted into the Liner
DEBALTSEVO • The ore/coal carrier Debaltsevo, seen in Gallions Reach in the River Thames in about 1967, served the Soviet Union from 1960. She was built at Warnemünde in East Germany and allocated to the Azov Shipping Company of Ukraine. In the 1980s she mainly traded in the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean and in February 1986 was sent from her home port of Mariupol (then named Zhdanov) to Sveti Kajo near Split, Yugoslavia for breaking. AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
74 • July 2022 • www.shipsmonthly.com
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