Lenin is the first nuclear icebreaker

The world"s first atomic icebreaker "Lenin" was built in the USSR in 1956-1959. Its creation, which has become an epoch -making event in the field of peaceful use of atomic energy, was far from accidental. In the postwar years, new foci of industry and mining began to develop in the Arctic: Norilsk, the Pechora coal basin, the gas deposits of Taimyr, the industrial Chaun-Chukotsky district, etc. To export raw materials and provide all the necessary polar cities and villages, it was necessary to sharply raise the truck Northern Sea Route, extend the navigation period, ensure the wiring of heavy vessels. To solve these problems, powerful libraries were needed. During this period, nuclear energy was rapidly developing all over the world.
In 1954, the world"s first nuclear submarine “Nautilus" was launched in the USA. In the same year, the world"s first nuclear power plant began to work in Obninsk. Soon, scientists and engineers began to think about the use of atomic energy on surface ships and ships. "It was necessary to create a compact nuclear power plant, which has high power, good controllability and survivability in severe conditions of pitching, vibration and shock loads, ensuring radiation safety during operation both in the open sea and in ports, with the minimum weight of biological protection, to produce a unique Energy mechanical equipment, the high -strength hull of the ship, to carry out almost complete automation of the processes of management, regulation and control of energy systems, ”wrote V. I. Neganov.
In June 1960, the icebreaker entered the first contact with the ice of the Kara Sea and showed high ice transmission, close to the calculated, and wonderful maneuverable qualities. It will not be an exaggeration to say that, despite its significant dimensions, the ship even in heavy ice has the twine of the port tugboat.
Over 30 years of work in the Arctic, the nuclear power plant spent 3740 vessels in the ice and passed the distance three times higher than the path from the ground to the moon and more than 30 times the length of the earth’s circle along the equator. Many operations carried out by "Lenin" have forever entered the history of the development of the Arctic. Today this unique ship is installed as a museum for eternal parking in Murmansk.
About the history of the creation, device and operation of the atomic icebreaker "Lenin" is told in the work proposed to the reader.

About the author:
Kuznetsov Nikita Anatolyevich was born in 1978 in Leningrad. Candidate of Historical Sciences. Leading researcher at the military-historical heritage department of the House of Russian Abroad named after A. Solzhenitsyna.
Participated in expeditions to the Arctic (including on "Mikhail Somov" in 2009-2010), Antarctic, round-the-world swimming of the Sedov barcard. The author of more than 200 scientific and popular science publications. Active member of the Russian Geographical Society