Thursday, February 15, 2007

SOVIET LINERS IN LISBON

From my early pictures' album, I particularly like those two images of Soviet passenger liners on their first visits to Lisbon: the SHOTA RUSTAVELI docking at the Rocha Passenger Ships Terminal on 23rd March 1975 on the first call ever of a URSS passenger ship to Lisbon; the LEONID SOBINOV docking at Alcântara also doing her first call since sold by Cunard to the Soviets in 1973.
The SHOTA RUSTAVELI was the fourth of five sisters of the IVAN FRANKO-class, and was built in East Germany in 1968. She was doing a round the world liner voyage and shared her berth in Lisbon with ITALIA's CRISTOFORO COLOMBO, then a regular visitor on her Mediterranean - Brazil - Plata service. Like most Soviet liners, the SHOTA RUSTAVELI looked in need of some attention to her hull, with rust and an image of neglect...
The LEONID hull was also far from pristine... She was doing a series of summer cruises for CTC Cruises of London, and I enjoyed her calls particularly, for she had been built as the original Cunarder SAXONIA in 1954, converted for cruising in 1963 as the CARMANIA and sold ten years later to the URSS "en block" with her sister FRANCONIA. Both ships visited Lisbon several times over the years although not very often...
When I started taking photos of passenger ships in Lisbon in February 1975, the Soviet Union had the largest fleet in the world. Most of the older ships had been taken over from Germany in 1945 and rebuilt. This original fleet was followed by several classes of new ships, including the MIKHAIL KALININ-class, formed by no less than 19 sisters, built in East Germany in 1958-1964, the IVAN FRANKO-class (five ships introduced 1964 to 1973) or the then brand new Finland-built five sisters of the BYELORUSSIYA class... The flagship was the MAKSIM GORKIY, the former German HAMBURG of 1969, who still visits Lisbon regularly and must be nearing the end of her working life, still in steam, still looking very German and modern-sixties...
Copyright photos and words by Luís Miguel Correia - 15 February 2007

4 comments:

  1. That's what I like: good ol' liners!! Thanks for showing us these beautiful ships!!

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  2. Sailor Girl,
    Those liners were a bit old even if recently built at the time, but to an old design... But they were not exactly very good. They were sturdy Soviet-style utilitarian ships...

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  3. Comentário recebido do João Pedro:

    Obrigado mais uma vez pelas boas e bonitas imagens de navios
    acabei de ver no blog 2 imagens penso k do paquete russo leonid sobinov
    bem gostaria de poder recordar mais imagens desse espetacular navio pois foi
    o primeiro e infelizmente o unico em que naveguei a bordo atravessando o
    nosso atlantico
    tenho imensa saudade e alguma tristeza de não poder ter imagens do interior
    desse navio para poder mostrar aos meus filhos, pois na altura em que viagem
    não possuia máquina de fotos
    assim me vou contentando aos poucos pois descobri no seu blog a minha paixão
    pelo mar e navios que doutra forma não podia contentar a minha mente.
    gostaria de poder fazer comentários directos a alguns textos mas não sei
    como o poderei fazer
    agradeço a sua atenção

    e continuação de bom trabalho

    com os melhores cumprimentos
    joão pedro

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  4. João Pedro,

    Para fazer comentários directamente aquié só inscrever-se bo Blogger ou abrir um blog, que pode nem estar activo. É muito simples, basfa seguir as indicações....
    Também gostava muito do LEONID SOBINOV. As travessias para Cuba foram posteriores...

    LMC

    ReplyDelete