From the archive, 24 June 1969: Mystery surrounds whereabouts of Russian ship

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/24/lenin-russian-ship-missing-nuclear

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What has happened to the ice breaker Lenin, the world’s first atomic powered surface ship and pride of the Soviet merchant marine? For nearly two years now this recurring question has interested some Western observers. Rumours range from a vivid picture of her lying abandoned in the Polar ice, her reactor having run wild, to more prosaic suggestions that a Russian crane driver dropped a heavy piece of machinery while she was under repair and sank her at the quayside.

The first story allegedly reached Scandinavia from Russian sailors coming home suffering from radiation burns. They sound a bit like those famous Russian soldiers with snow on their boots. But, until the Lenin herself heaves into view or the Soviet Government makes it clear exactly where she is, people will continue to offer their own solutions to this detective mystery.

Terence Armstrong of the Scott Polar Research Institute, who for many years now has monitored activity along the Soviet Arctic routes, believes that “quite obviously something serious has gone wrong.” The last record of the Lenin in his files dates back to early 1967 when the Soviet authorities said it was hoped to have her leading the ice breaking fleet as usual that summer. But she did not turn up.

As far as I know, Russian shipping officials confronted with the mystery have either denied rumours or referred generally to the Lenin operating as usual convoying freighters between Arctic ports. But such assurance has left Western sceptics unconvinced because until 1967 the Lenin was always sighted at some time during the Arctic navigation season or at least reported directly by the Russians.

In 1964, for example, they reported with pride that in her first five years of operation she had escorted 400 ships, having forced a way for them through 50,000 miles of ice. She was also mentioned last summer but only for comparison with the two more powerful nuclear ice breakers now apparently under construction.

The Soviet ship was refuelled for the first time in 1963, four years after leaving the shipyard at Leningrad where she was built. It would be surprising if either this job or major repairs to the reactor could be carried out in one of the Arctic ports, which are icebound for much of the year and where she is now said to spend her time. Refuelling as such might only take a few weeks but major engineering work could take up to the two years for which she has been invisible to Western eyes.

Assuming something serious has gone wrong, what are the possibilities? The radiation burns the Russian sailors allegedly received could have been confused with injuries from high-pressure steam. Given the elaborate care that the Russians and all others take to shield nuclear reactors and make them “fail safe” this seems a far more likely sort of accident. Dropping something heavy from the quayside is not quite as far-fetched as it may seem, because the reactor lid would itself be a massive awkward affair.

The most pedestrian explanation is that the Lenin’s pioneering reactor system - which is after all 10 years old - is simply being replaced by a more compact efficient unit, perhaps designed as a test bed for the bigger vessels now being built. My guess is that if a planned reconstruction of the ship has been going on we should have had some positive information by now. Perhaps the Russians have run up against some unexpected nuclear engineering problem - metal fatigue or corrosion perhaps - which they do not want to talk about until they are quite sure the Lenin can once again take pride of place in their Arctic fleet.

The rumours proved to be unfounded and The Lenin re-entered service in 1970 after several years in refit.