can I interest you in a terrifying photo of Yermak, the world’s first polar icebreaker? 
named for the Cossack ataman who begun the Russian conquest of Siberia, you see
I should be sleeping but I am too anxious so I am reading about Yermak
so there is a tiny rock in the middle of the Gulf of Finland. nobody knows this tiny rock is there, because it’s a tiny rock
in 1897 the Russians sail a ship, Gangut, into it, by accident
nobody dies or anything, they just gouge the bottom out of their hull and they’re like, okay we gotta get off the ship. then it very slowly sinks. even the Russians don’t really care
they care so little they don’t think to tell anyone where the rock was. so two years later, a bigger Russian battleship they do care about, Apraksin, hits the rock
but because it’s a bigger ship it just kind of gets wedged there
‘move the ship off the rock’
we can’t, it’ll sink
‘okay uh. stay there until we figure this out’
so they just leave the crew aboard as winter rolls in. winter in the gulf of Finland, as seen from space
we can’t, it’ll sink
‘okay uh. stay there until we figure this out’
so they just leave the crew aboard as winter rolls in. winter in the gulf of Finland, as seen from space
the whole thing freezes over. the crew get out and walk over the ice to the nearest island to build a radio station where they and the admirals can yell at each other about what to do next
the admirals decide, we will send this icebreaker Yermak, which we have built as part of a 19th century nationalist quest to fuck the very concept of cold
here’s Yermak on scene in an extremely cool photo
so at first they think, we use our big icebreaker to tow it off the rock. that doesn’t work
they come up with the best solution I’ve ever heard
[russianly] we use explosives to blow up the rock. no rock, no longer stuck on rock
this......... works
Yermak tows Apraksin all the way back to port, mission accomplished. Yermak keeps on keeping on through two world wars
including the ‘ice cruise’ of the first, where it punches through 2m of ice at 12 knots to evacuate the Baltic Fleet from Helsinki to St Petersburg
only scrapped, reluctantly, in 1964, after 66 years of service
catch me getting sentimental about this ship
and apparently I’m not the only one, because the Soviet and then Russian Navy have been naming icebreakers after it since. here’s the most recent one, which is still working today
PS the Soviet vibe for icebreakers was... well
that’s Yamal, which is Nenets for ‘the end of land’. It’s nuclear-powered also
the only thing I have to promote is throw dollar at me
