In coming two years the St. Petersburg Krylov State Research Center (one of the world’s largest shipbuilding research and design centers) will come up with a design. There, the center partners with the Central Design Bureau Aisberg (leading designer of icebreakers and ice-rowing vessels, including those fitted with nuclear power and propulsion reactors) to fulfill this governmental order.

There has been nothing like that in the Russian fleet before, according to Mustafa Kashka, first deputy CEO of Rosatomflot. “Now we are limited to a 5-6-month period. This is because of the icebreakers’ operation and the ships they steer. We make a great step forward,” he believes.

Wide and potent
The ship will feature an unprecedented rate of power. “There are military and civil ships of this power today, but there are no such icebreakers. At present, the largest power of a Russian icebreaker is 54.2 MW, while this ship will feature 110 MW, i.e. twice more than that,” Kashka emphasized.

One more advantage of the future ship is its hull width. “Our existing icebreakers are 30-meter wide; given the ice breaking width, they make channels 33-34-meter wide. But today’s vessels that carry large freights are 45-50 meters wide. Therefore, on our part, we have to build much larger ships,” Kashka said.