The long-awaited liner for Caspian cruises has been launched for testing
The Astrakhan shipyard "Lotos" has almost completed a large–scale project to create the first in the history of modern Russia cruise liner "Peter the Great" - a vessel of mixed navigation (river-sea).
As already reported, the cruise ship's route will pass through the Caspian Sea through Russia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Iran.
According to sources, this fall a large "long-term construction" will be handed over to the customer. At this stage, the vessel has already been launched, and its tests are coming to an end.
The project to create a cruise liner "Peter the Great" started back in 2016. The construction process took place in difficult conditions — the deadlines were postponed repeatedly. At first, they talked about a two-year project, but every year the deadline had to be postponed for a number of reasons.
The Mosturflot customer immediately announced his intention to build a 5-star vessel. "This is our unique offer on the market, since none of the countries in the Caspian region currently has a tourist fleet that could make international flights," said Svetlana Goncharova, Development Director of the cruise company.
We are talking about a floating hotel on board a modern passenger liner of the Volga-Don Max class and with a capacity of 310 people. Balconies will become a "feature", they will be in almost all 155 cabins, including a standard, a pool with a sliding roof, two jacuzzis, a theater and music salon with a stage for performances, a 24-hour outdoor grill bar and a restaurant with an open kitchen that is fashionable now.
Difficulties with implementation arose at almost every step, since nothing like this had been created at the enterprise before. Specialists have repeatedly redone the project, the customer has made adjustments. The construction process was also slowed down by the situation with the pandemic.
The creation of huge cruise liners is a high-precision and high-tech production. In addition, the Astrakhan shipyard had to carry out a full cycle of ship creation, including all finishing works, entirely on domestic materials and technologies.
This is a vessel with a reinforced hull that holds a three-meter sea wave. So far, this is a pilot project, which may become serial in the future. The creators are still "stuffing their hands", because everything is done from scratch. One of the main tasks in the future will be the organization of serial launch of such airliners. Then the construction period can be halved, to about three years.
Now the first container ships in Russia are being built at the Lotus production site of the Southern Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Center. These vessels are necessary for the transportation of goods within the framework of the international transport corridor "North–South", in the organization of which the region, as is known, occupies a special place, especially from the point of view of logistics.
We are talking about universal bulk carriers-container ships of mixed navigation (they will be able to move along sea and river routes) and increased container capacity. The customer was JSC "STLC" (State Transport Leasing Company).
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