Zhores Alferov, laureate of Nobel Prize, Vice President of RAS, Director of Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute

– Nuclear icebreaking fleet has played a great role in the development of the Arctic region

Day of Nuclear Icebreaking Fleet is being marked in Murmansk today, Dec 3. 49 years ago, on Dec 3, the world’s first nuclear icebreaker “Lenin” hoisted a national flag. Nine nuclear icebreakers of three generations and the world’s only nuclear powered lighter-aboard container carrier “Sevmorput” have been built in our country since then. Our nuclear icebreaking fleet is unique: no single country in the world has such capacities of work in icy area.

I am not an expert on nuclear icebreakers but I can say that nuclear icebreaking fleet has played a great role in the development of the Arctic region. I very much regret that today the world’s first nuclear icebreaker “Lenin” is not in service.

Russia must certainly renovate its nuclear icebreaking fleet as only nuclear icebreakers can work in the Arctic region. The construction of nuclear icebreakers was a historic achievement. I know it because I was involved in the creation of the nuclear submarine fleet. Our nuclear submarines and icebreakers were created under the guidance of great scientist and nuclear physicist Anatoly Alexandrov.

I remember the appearance of “Lenin” icebreaker on Neva River in 1959 and the tests of the first nuclear submarine “Leninsky Komsomol” in 1958. Admiral Rickover, the father of the first American nuclear submarine “Nautilus,” came to the Soviet Union. We did not show him “Leninsky Komsomol.” We showed “Lenin” and he was impressed.