Kremlin.ru August 7, 2007 Meeting with Participants of the Arctic 2007 Expedition Artur Chilingarov and Anatolii Sagalevich Novo-Ogaryovo
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ARTUR CHILINGAROV: <snip> I was able to involve the Rossiia nuclear icebreaker in our work. It towed the Akademik Fedorov research vessel with the deep-water submersibles on board all the way to the North Pole. And therefore the first descent to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean took place right at the North Pole.
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I love nuclear powered icebreakers the way teenage girls love high speed LA car chases filmed from French jet choppers. Which is a lot of love.
Probably too much.
The Rossiia is an Arktika class vessel powered by Russian made OK-150 reactors. OK-150s have an output of about 90 Megawatts.
Oh nuclear power! My lefty politics and general awareness of sloppy engineering whisper rude things about you in my ears but you'll always be my one true love!
I couldn't find an image of the Rossiia but the ever more praiseworthy Wikipedia has a nice series of articles about Russian icebreakers.
Here's an entry about the NS Yamal, which is also in the Arktika class and very similar to the Rossiia:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamal_%28icebreaker%29>
.d.