The ceremony of ice-breaker "Sankt-Peterburg’s” official transfer to the principal builder FSUE “Rosmorport” and signing the acceptance certificate of the ice-breaker which had recently successfully passed the state sea trials was held at the shipyard of “Baltiysky Zavod” in St.-Petersburg on July, 12th, 2009. The national flag of the Russian Federation was ceremonially lifted on ice-breaker "Sankt-Peterburg".

At the ceremony of lifting the flag the following officials were present: Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin, First Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation S.B. Ivanov, Minister of transport of the Russian Federation I.E. Levitin, Head of the Federal Agency of Sea and River Transport A.A. Davydenko, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation A.N. Tchilingarov, Plenipotentiary of the President of the Russian Federation in the Northwest federal district I.I. Klebanov, Governor of Saint-Petersburg V.I. Matvienko, General director of FSUE “Rosmorport” I.M. Rusu, and also the representatives of OAO “Baltiysky Zavod”, OAO “United Ship-Building Corporation”, ZAO “United Industrial Corporation” and other officials.

Ice-breaker "Sankt-Peterburg" was constructed at the “Baltiysky Zavod” plant during the period of 2006-2009 years and represents the second vessel of the series of ice-breakers of Project 21900. The construction of ice-breaker "Sankt-Peterburg" was carried out within the framework of the Federal Target Program «Modernization of the Transport System of Russia 2002 – 2010». Rosmorrechflot acted as the state customer of the ice-breaker construction, FSUE “Rosmorport” - the principal builder and maintaining organization. The general expenses on the construction of ice-breaker "Sankt-Peterburg" made up a little more than 2,9 billion rubles.

Ice-breaker "Sankt-Peterburg" will carry out ice-breaking pilotages in the direction of the Russian seaports during winter navigations in the Gulf of Finland water area. The Project 21900 ice-breakers are multipurpose ice-breakers of a new generation and are capable (besides the functions of ice-breaking pilotages) of solving a whole complex of other tasks with the use of special equipment, located on the ice- breaker. To solve additional tasks the ice-breaker is equipped with special fire equipment for extinguishing ship fires, a diving complex, small-sized remote-controlled underwater craft "Falcon" for the observation of underwater objects at depths up to 800 meters, towed hydrolocator with a lateral view for the search of underwater objects and inspection of water areas. Except for the specified functions the ice-breaker has  search-and-rescue equipment onboard for carrying out rescue operations, and also equipment for the dissolution of oil spills. The ice- breaker corresponds to the international standards on ecological safety.

The basic technical characteristics of the linear diesel-electric ice-breaker "Sankt-Peterburg" of Project 21900 are: displacement - 14300 tons, length - 114 meters, width – 27,5 meters, immersion – 8,5 meters. The ice-breaker possesses highly maneuvering qualities thanks to the use of two full-circle steerable propellers with the general capacity of 16 megawatt.