Russian Shipyard Completes Equipping Arktika Icebreaker With Nuclear Reactors

Russia’s Baltic Shipyard completed erecting of the RITM-200 reactor units at the Arktika icebreaker having equipped the vessel with a second steam generating unit - a key stage of the vessel’s construction, the plant said on Tuesday.

ST. PETERSBURG (Sputnik) – The first steam generating unit was installed earlier in September.

“Today we successfully completed a key stage of construction of the nuclear-powered icebreaker,” acting Director General of the Baltic Shipyard Vladimir Bazhenov said, as quoted in the plant’s press release.

The Arktika, the first project 22220 class ship and the first nuclear icebreaker to be fully built in modern-day Russia, was successfully launched at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg on June 16. Its length will be 173 meters (about 570 feet), width – 34 meters (over 110 feet), displacement – 33,500 metric tons (abound 37,000 US tons).

The vessel is equipped with two 175MWT RITM-200 reactor units developed by Russia's Afrikantov Experimental Design Bureau for Mechanical Engineering (OKBM Afrikantov) and weighing about 180 metric tons [around 200 US tons].