From The Barents Observer, November 9:
Here comes a nuclear-powered cargo ship loaded with seafood
Norway’s nuclear safety watchdog is informed about the voyage, but want to know more about Russia’s future plans for sailing commercial cargo with the reactor-powered «Sevmorput» container ship.
The world’s only remaining civilian nuclear-powered cargo ship, the «Sevmorput» is Monday sailing south into the Norwegian Sea en route to St. Petersburg loaded with 204 refrigerated containers with frozen fish from the Pacific aimed for the market in European Russia.
The ship will arrive in St. Petersburg by the end of this week after sailing south along the coast of Norway, through the Great Belt in Denmark and into the Baltic Sea.
«It’s crucial for Rosatomflot to expend the geography of our work,» says Mustafa Kaskha, Director of the Murmansk-based state-own fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers.
This is first time ever Russia sails commercial cargo with a nuclear-powered vessel via the Arctic to St. Petersburg.
«Sevmorput» left port in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka on August 29th as reported by the Barents Observer and sailed the Northern Sea Route before entering the Barents Sea this Sunday.
Head of the High North Section of the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, Inger Margrethe Eikelmann, says Russia did inform Norwegian authorities about the coming cargo transport along the coast Norway....MUCH MOREIf only there was some sort of land based transportation mode that could make the trip, something that crossed Siberia, Trans-Siberian if you will, that was comprised of individual cars that could be hooked up in train. And get the damn salmon to Moscow in days not weeks.
Maybe put 'em on a boat in Petropavlovsk and sail them across the Sea of Okhotsk to Sovetskaya Gavan, whose harbormasters are (reputedly) eminently bribable and will speed your multi-modal perishables on their way west to wind up in some fat mafioso's belly. Ditto for Vladivostok but you'll need to wave a bit more cash to get anyone's attention.
Seriously what are the Russians up to with this?