Ship Modelers Database
Krassin (icebreaker, 1917)
Preserved - Museum Ship (St. Petersburg, Russia)
Krassin (originally named Svyatogor) is a steam-powered icebreaker built for the Imperial Russian Navy, launched in August 1916 and completed in February 1917. She became one of the most famous icebreakers in the world, renowned both for her power and her role in a dramatic 1928 Arctic rescue.
Kits of this ship
+ Add a kit| Krasin Icebreaker 1918 (Svyatogor) | Combrig (Kombrig) | 1:700 | Resin | Available |
Plans
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Build logs
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Resources
+ Submit a resourceHistory & specifications
- Wikipedia: Krassin (1916 icebreaker)Website
Detailed history of the icebreaker including construction, WWII service, 1953-60 rebuild, and current museum ship status in St Petersburg.
Museums & archives
- Museum Ships: Icebreaker Krasin, St PetersburgMuseum
Museum-ship directory entry summarizing the vessel's career and confirming she remains open to the public and seaworthy.
History
Specifications
The ship measures about 99.8 m in length with a 21.65 m beam and 7.5 m draft, at roughly 6,048 GRT / 4,220 t deadweight. During World War II she carried four 76mm guns, seven 20mm anti-aircraft guns, and ten large-caliber machine guns for convoy escort duty. She was built by Armstrong Whitworth in Newcastle upon Tyne under the supervision of future novelist Yevgeny Zamyatin.
Service history
During the Allied intervention in northern Russia (1918–19) she was scuttled to block the port of Arkhangelsk, then raised by the Royal Navy and used for minesweeping and obstruction-clearing duties around Scapa Flow before being returned to the USSR in 1921 and renamed Krassin in 1927 in honor of Soviet diplomat Leonid Krasin. Her most celebrated exploit came in 1928, when she rescued General Umberto Nobile and the survivors of the crashed airship Italia near the North Pole, and went on to assist the damaged liner Monte Cervantes. In World War II she escorted Arctic convoys (including PQ-15) after an aborted deal to transfer her to the US Coast Guard, and from 1953–1960 she was extensively rebuilt at a shipyard in Wismar, East Germany, before serving the Northern Sea Route until 1971.
Notable facts
Up to the early 1950s Krassin held the distinction of being the most powerful icebreaker in the world, and American evaluation of her design fed directly into the US Coast Guard's Wind-class icebreakers. Rather than being scrapped like her contemporary Yermak, she was preserved and is now permanently moored as a museum ship in Saint Petersburg, remaining in operable condition. Her 1928 rescue mission was commemorated in the Soviet documentary Heroic Deed Among the Ice, and she has appeared on postage stamps and a commemorative coin.