Murmansk Shipping Company

The Murmansk Shipping Company was established in 1939 as a state-owned cargo and passenger company serving the Arctic. When it was founded, it also took over the Murmansk Commercial Port, a ship-repair yard, nine freighters and three cargo-passenger vessels. By 1940, its fleet already numbered 37 ships, including icebreakers and ice-strengthened steamers. During the Second World War, the company’s ships carried supplies from Great Britain and Iceland as part of the Allied aid effort; ten vessels belonging to the Arctic company were lost. In this way, the early company combined coastal supply services, long-distance freight and winter access to northern ports.

Shipping in the Arctic

Its routes linked Murmansk with Arkhangelsk and, via Dudinka, with Igarka; another route ran from Murmansk to Spitsbergen. These routes served cargo and passenger traffic in a region where navigation was shaped by ice. From the 1950s onward, the fleet included ice-strengthened ships and diesel-electric vessels. The company was therefore not merely a cruise operator, but an Arctic shipping company. Its freight routes in the Arctic supplied the northern settlements.

Several new organizational structures followed a series of mergers. In 1953, the Murmansk company was merged with the Arkhangelsk Arctic Shipping Company and the Murmansk Maritime Office of the Main Administration of the Northern Sea Route. In 1964, this Arctic organization and the Northern Sea Shipping Company were combined to form the Administration of the Arctic and Icebreaker Fleet in Murmansk. In 1967, the Murmansk Maritime Shipping Company operated as a shipping company under the Soviet Ministry of the Maritime Fleet.

Its operating areas extended beyond the Arctic: from 1955, the company’s ships made voyages to Antarctica. In 1964, it opened the international “Arctic Line” between ports in Europe and Canada. From 1978, year-round navigation was possible in the western Arctic. The Kola Encyclopedia records salvage and rescue operations in the eastern Arctic Ocean in 1983 and 1994.

From shipping to polar tourism

The nuclear icebreaker “Lenin” became the signature vessel of the Murmansk fleet. Its construction was approved in 1953; the ship was launched on 5 December 1957 and entered service on 3 December 1959. As the company’s flagship, it escorted cargo ships along the Northern Sea Route. According to the Museum of Maritime and River Transport, it was designed to break through ice up to two metres thick and could reach speeds of up to 18 knots. On 10 April 1974, the “Lenin” was awarded the Order of Lenin for its contribution to supplying the Arctic and to the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The icebreaker remained in service for another fifteen years; it was then laid up in Murmansk and converted into a museum ship.

Alongside transport, tourism also began to develop: from 1989, the company organized high-latitude cruises; the regional encyclopedia records that tourists travelled to the North Pole aboard nuclear-powered icebreakers in 1990.

In 1993, the company was reorganized as an open joint-stock company. The holding at the time also included the Northern Sea Shipping Company and the Northern River Shipping Company. In 2008, the nuclear icebreakers and the nuclear-powered lighter and container ship “Sevmorput” were transferred to Atomflot. This changed the institutional ownership of the nuclear fleet.