At the Crossroads#

The most powerful icebreaker in the world for decades, the Krassin has not only been a spectator, but has played the role of a lead character in landmark historical events. It took part in the Arctic convoys supplying the Soviet Union during the first stages of Nazi Germany’s invasion, played a major role in the exploration of the High Latitudes, and took part in some of the most prominent Arctic rescue missions, starting with the recovery of part of Umberto Nobile’s crew of the airship Italia.

The icebreaker was built in 1916 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, by the Armstrong Whitworth shipyards, and delivered to Russia in February 1917 under the name Svyatogor. Choosing a British shipyard to build a flagship icebreaker was a natural choice at the time: during World War I, the British and Russian Empires were allied against the Central Powers. At the same time, between the US Civil War and the rise of the Japanese in the 1950s, British shipbuilding was the largest in the world. While its market share had already dwindled by around 20% since 1890, on the eve of the Great War it was still delivering 60% of the world tonnage.

One of the engineers who oversaw the construction of the Svyatogor was Evgeny Zamyatin, the author of the novel We. He later recalled in a short essay, About My Wives, Icebreakers, and Russia, however, that he had a smaller part in its construction compared to the other icebreakers of the time:¹

“So, it turns out that all ‘Russian’ icebreakers were imported into Russia from abroad? Yes, but upon closer inspection, much that now seems specifically Russian turns out to be imported material. Even Marxism, which, as we know, was born on German soil. Even… samovars, which—as has now been established—were in use by the Chinese two thousand years before Christ. But facts are worthless: samovars will forever remain Russian. They [icebreakers] may be built abroad, and there may only be twelve of them so far, but they do their job: in the dead, dense, indifferent ice, they carve a path from Europe to Russia.”

The Svyatogor was assigned to the Arctic Ice Sea Flotilla, based in the town of Alexandrovsk-na-Murmane (now Polyarny, Murmansk Oblast) near Murmansk. After the October Revolution, the flotilla joined the Red Army.

Fragment of the painting Launch of the icebreaker Svyatogor for sea trials, 1916. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Vladimir Kosov, CC BY-SA 4.0

On the eve of the Allied intervention during the Russian Civil War, the icebreaker was scuttled at the entrance to the port of Arkhangelsk in order to prevent it from being taken by the Allies. The British Royal Navy nevertheless managed to recover the vessel and take possession of it.

In the early 1920s it became clear that the White Army would not be able to win, even with Western support, and at the same time Lenin backtracked from war communism and replaced it with the New Economic Policy, which also implied a more open environment toward foreign investment.

One of the first countries to adopt a pragmatic stance toward Soviet Russia was Britain, whose prime minister, David Lloyd George, expressed his willingness to lift the blockade against the latter.

The opportunity to restore trade and business relations with what was then the leading world economy was met favorably in the RSFSR, and after one year of negotiations London and Moscow signed the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement, which amounted to a de facto diplomatic recognition of Soviet Russia by Britain. As part of the agreement, the Svyatogor was bought back by the Soviets for £75,000, and in 1927 the diplomat Leonid Krassin, the commissar of foreign trade who negotiated the treaty on the Russian side, became the ship’s namesake.

The Krassin met history again in June 1941, while it was anchored in Providence Bay in Chukotka. At that time, the ship was waiting for favorable conditions to sail through the Northeast Passage, yet the news coming from Europe forced it to change its plans altogether.

The Krassin was redirected to the Americas, and after an adventurous voyage through the Pacific Ocean and the Panama Canal it reached the port of Baltimore, on the US East Coast, where it was outfitted with weaponry and underwent repairs by the company Bethlehem Steel. After two stops in Halifax, Canada, and Glasgow, Scotland, the Krassin made the last part of its voyage, from Reykjavik to Murmansk, as part of Convoy PQ 15.

During the rest of the war, the Krassin was mostly employed in routine but dangerous operations on the Arctic front. During the 1942 Operation Wunderland, it was chased together with other Soviet ships by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer. This Nazi operation led to the sinking of some of them, such as the icebreaker Alexander Sibiryakov, but the Krassin managed to escape this fate.

A poster in the museum collection of the Krassin. Source: The Arctic Century

Civilian Use: The Red Tent#

The Krassin was employed not only for military purposes. As the most powerful icebreaker of its time, it took part in several rescue and exploration missions. The most famous of them was the rescue of the airship Italia, with which Umberto Nobile reached the North Pole in May 1928. On the way back to Italy, the Italia crashed on the ice cap north of the Svalbard Islands, leaving Nobile and part of his crew stranded there.

It should be noted that the “Director of the Arctic,” Soviet polar explorer Rudolf Samoylovich, insisted on using the Krassin for this mission, despite the fact that the Yermak and Lenin icebreakers were also available.

Rudolf Samoylovich (1883–1939). A Soviet polar explorer, professor, and doctor of geographic sciences.

The survivors of the Italia crash remained stranded on the ice cap for a few weeks, under a red tent and with just a dead bear and some processed food as their only sources of sustenance, until a Swedish plane saved Nobile and part of the crew. The remaining survivors, including the radio operator who sent the SOS messages, were saved on July 12 by the Krassin.

These events are famously depicted in an international 1969 movie by Mikhail Kalatozov, starring Sean Connery and Claudia Cardinale, The Red Tent.

The tragedy behind this expedition, which gave it so much prominence, lies in the fact that the “Knight of the Arctic,” Roald Amundsen, envied Nobile’s fate. In an interview on the topic of the Italia, he exclaimed that he wanted to die “like a knight” during such a great mission in high latitudes. And he did—while trying to save Nobile. After the Norwegian government asked the USSR for help, the Krassin stayed in the Arctic for a few months in the vain hope of finding Amundsen, but to no avail.

This expedition, despite its grandeur, has still raised some eyebrows. As a result of this six-country operation, more people died in attempts to save the survivors of the crash than in the crash itself.

On the way back from this mission, the Krassin also saved the Monte Cervantes, a German-built passenger ship due to be sold to an Argentine company, which had just hit a small iceberg on the way between North Cape and the Svalbard Islands, while carrying around 1,500 passengers. This heroic mission allowed the Krassin to be awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and the Monte Cervantes to become operational again.²

In 1932, the Krassin undertook a mission in the Pechora Sea to rescue the icebreaker Lenin, trapped in an ice bank since the late summer.

The Krassin also played a key role in the discovery of some previously unexplored regions of the Arctic. The rescue of the crew of the Italia airship itself allowed the icebreaker to reach a latitude of 82° N, which was a record at that time. In March 1933, the Krassin became the first ship to explore the northern shores of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago at a time of year when ice cover was at its peak, and two years later it conducted several voyages in the Chukchi Sea and to the north of Wrangel Island, where it carried out hydrological work at a depth of 200 meters.

While it never reached the North Pole (the first surface ship to ever reach the North Pole was the icebreaker Arktika in 1977), these achievements were still remarkable for that time.

After World War II#

Between 1953 and 1960, as part of the German war reparation program, the Krassin underwent a full reconstruction at the Wismar shipyards in the German Democratic Republic, yet the icebreaker had already started to show its age.

Flags in the museum collection of the icebreaker. Source: The Arctic Century

Until the 1950s, the Krassin had been the most powerful icebreaker in the world. It was capable of crossing ice up to 2.5 meters thick, and its steam engines had a total capacity of more than 10,000 horsepower. Moreover, its state-of-the-art technology was such that, during World War II, the information the United States received from the Krassin played a major role in the design of the Wind-class icebreakers. But the era of nuclear-powered icebreakers was coming, and in 1957 the icebreaker Lenin was launched. The Krassin was no longer the crown jewel of the Soviet icebreaker fleet.

Since 1969, the icebreaker has been used on the route between Murmansk and Dudinka, a river port near the mouth of the Yenisei River. Since Dudinka is connected by rail to Norilsk, home of the largest nickel deposits in the world but lacking road and rail connections with the rest of Russia,³ this link allowed Norilsk to enjoy year-round connections with the outside world.

In the following years, the Krassin was employed mostly as a research vessel and in the search for deposits of raw materials in the Arctic region, especially oil and gas.

Further restoration took place in Murmansk in 1982, which allowed the ship to perform some commercial voyages to several European ports in the subsequent years. But its increasing obsolescence and the economic difficulties of the late Soviet period meant that the future of the Krassin was now at stake. In the early 1990s, there was a serious risk that the Krassin would end up being scrapped.

On June 14, 1991, it was sold for 5 million rubles to the Soviet-German joint venture Tehimeks, which unofficially renamed it Svyatogor. Their plan was to sell the ship in the United States as scrap metal. Nevertheless, given the historical significance of the Krassin, a committee was set up to save it from this fate, and on February 20, 1992, a decree of the Russian Federation declared the Krassin a historical monument of federal importance. This saved the icebreaker and paved the way for its restoration, which took place between 1995 and 1999, with the aim of turning it into a museum.

The Krassin Today#

Today the Krassin is a museum ship located on Vasilevsky Island in St. Petersburg. Although it lacks the fame of the nearby cruiser Aurora, renowned for firing the blank shot that started the October Revolution, the Krassin is definitely a must-see. A wide range of cultural activities is offered, as well as an exhibition on the history of the ship and on the Arctic convoys. But unlike other former warships turned into museum ships, such as the USS Missouri, the battleship where Japan signed its unconditional surrender at the end of World War II, or HMS Caroline, the last surviving ship of the Battle of Jutland, the Krassin has never been decommissioned.

The Krassin, therefore, could come back into service at any time if needed. A commander is officially appointed, and although the role of the captain of the Krassin is rather formal, the possibility that the icebreaker will come back into service cannot be excluded. Meanwhile, those wishing to visit the ship may enjoy, on some designated days, the opportunity to take a guided excursion with the captain of the icebreaker.