Nuclear icebreaker Lenin laid down by the Soviet Union according to the Australia Station Intelligence Summary dated 1 January 1957

Van Stoom tot Atoom, 1961

Text G.A.J. Bovens-drawings G.J. Frans Naerebout

An item referred to the Soviet News Agency Tass which reported that at Leningrad [St. Petersburg] the world’s first nuclear icebreaker was being build of steel, a displacement of 16,000 tons, dimensions 439 x 88 feet and 44,000hp horsepower. The building method was an uncommon one starting in the middle with the hull sections erected along an invisible axis. This so-called pyramidal method prevented dissortion of the hull during the assembly and there was no need for welding inside steel constructions.(1)

Note

1. Launched at the Admiralty Shipyards, Leningrad, USA on 2 December 1957, commissioned on 15 September 1959, decommissioned in 1989 and annow 2023 museum ship at Murmansk, Russia.

Source

Website Royal Australian Navy, Sea Power Centre.