The voyage will last 43 days.

The nuclear-powered lighter carrier Sevmorput will set off on its first regular coastal voyage along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) on July 10, 2022, Maxim Kulinko, deputy director of the Northern Sea Route Directorate of Rosatom State Corporation, told TASS on Tuesday.

"The first voyage from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok will start on July 10. It will last 43 days. So if three voyages are performed, the last one will end in mid-November. And given the ice situation, this will not require icebreaker assistance," the agency source said.

Earlier it was reported that the RF Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Rosatom prepared a project for regular transportation along the Northern Sea Route using the Sevmorput lighter carrier. According to the head of the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East, Alexei Chekunkov, it is planned that the nuclear-powered lighter carrier will make three voyages a year starting from 2022, returning to the departure point.

According to Kulinko, at the moment all the repair work on the Sevmorput lighter carrier has been completed, the vessel has been restored to serviceability, and it has even performed one of its current tasks.

"Sevmorput" is an icebreaking transport vessel (lighter carrier) with a nuclear power plant of the KLT-40 type. The largest of four non-military nuclear powered merchant ships ever built. It is the largest lighter carrier in terms of draught. It is able to independently navigate in ice up to 1 m thick. It is the only operating cargo ship with a nuclear power plant.

The Northern Sea Route is a shipping route, the main sea communication in the Russian Arctic. It runs from the Kara Strait to Cape Dezhnev along the northern shores of Russia along the seas of the Arctic Ocean (Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi and Bering). The NSR connects the European and Far Eastern ports of Russia, as well as the mouths of navigable Siberian rivers into a single transport system.

Source: TASS