Volodarsky (ship)

SS was a Soviet steamship, a timber carrier of the III series of -class ships, which was active in the Arctic during the 1930s and was later the oldest ship in the Murmansk Shipping Company fleet.
The ship was laid down as but was renamed during building. She was named after V. Volodarsky, a Russian revolutionary and an early Soviet politician.

History

First Lena Expedition

In 1933 Volodarsky took part in the first Soviet convoy to the mouth of the Lena, under Captain N. V. Smagin, along with steamers and. The convoy leader, Captain M. A. Sorokin, was on board Volodarsky. This convoy was led by icebreaker .
On the way back, severe ice conditions in the Vilkitsky Strait, forced the three freighters of the convoy to winter at Ostrov Samuila in the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands. A shore station was built and a full scientific programme maintained all winter by leader scientist N. N. Urvantsev and his wife, Dr. Yelizaveta Urvantseva, the expedition's medical officer.
The three ships were released in the following year by after much effort to break a channel through the thick ice. Then Volodarsky headed to Tiksi to load coal in order to bunker the ships of the Second Lena Expedition.

Contemporary period

In 1969, Volodarsky was transferred to the Baza-92 Repair and Technological Enterprise of the Murmansk Shipping Company.
According to some sources, the ship was reclassified as a nuclear-powered icebreaker depot ship after her conversion in. Then she was reclassified as a nuclear waste carrier in 1991.
According to other sources, until 1986 the ship was used to transport solid radioactive waste from Baza-92 to the west side of Novaya Zemlya for dumping into the Barents Sea. As of 1995, the ship had of low- and medium-level waste stored aboard.
In 2014, the recycling of the Volodarsky nuclear waste carrier was completed.