From 2 to 3 May a world’s only unmatched icebreakers’ festival took place in Saint-Petersburg. This year the festival was commemorated to the 70^th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, and to the great deed of the Polar Convoys participants. Four operating icebreakers of FSUE “Rosmorport” – the Moskva, the Kapitan Sorokin, the Mudyug and the Ivan Kruzenshtern together with the Krasin icebreaker-museum (branch of the World Ocean Museum) participated in the festival. The icebreakers were moored at the berths at the English Quay and the Lieutenant Schmidt’s Quay.

During two days everyone could access the icebreakers for free. Crew members as well as students of the State University of Marine and River Fleet under the name of Admiral S.O. Makarov were on duty on decks, always ready to answer the visitors’ most complicated questions on the structure and operational peculiarities of such vessels.

The solemn opening of the festival was marked by a long howler of the icebreaker, which could be heard by all citizens and guests in the Saint-Petersburg city center. On 2 May a massive historical reconstruction “Convoy PQ-17” was presented to the guests and citizens of Saint-Petersburg, followed by a grandiose military parade on the next day. Accompanied by a symphonic orchestra ice tugs performed a sea waltz, and after that the Ivan Kruzenshtern and the Moskva icebreakers put a spectacular termination to the festival making a complicated turn, which showed the crews’ professionalism. Also, a photo exhibition commemorated to Blockaded Leningrad, the War and the Victory was on through the whole festival.  

All together the enterprise icebreakers received more than 18 thousand citizens and guests of Saint-Petersburg during the festival. In this year marked by 70^th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War the festival is a symbol of pride for the greatest icebreaking fleet in the world and a  tribute to our country’s history.