Borodino-class motorship

Borodino class motorship was a class of Russian river passenger ships.[1] The series is named after Borodino village, and the ships themselves are notable for their size, power, and use in the Russo-Japanese War and the Bolshevik Revolution.

Class overview
Builders: Kolomenskiy yard
Operators: Kaukas & Mercury
Built: 1911–1917
Planned: 14
Completed: 11
Cancelled: 3
Active: 0
General characteristics [1]
Length:
  • 92.9 m (304 ft 9 in) o/a
  • 89.9 m (294 ft 11 in) p/p
Beam: 9.8 m (32 ft 2 in)
Draught: 2 m (6 ft 7 in)
Propulsion: 2 × 600 hp (447 kW) 6-cylinder diesel engines
Speed: 23 km/h (14 mph)
Capacity: 500 passengers, 320 tons of cargo

Origins

The Borodino class were some of the first screw ships for passengers on the various rivers in Russia. The ships were built between 1911 and 1917 at the Kolomenskiy shipyard for Kaukas & Mercury primarily for passenger service, although some also performed postal work.

Specifications

The ships each had a pair of six cylinder diesel engines, and had double decks. Capable of carrying 500 passengers and up to 300 tons of cargo, they were not small paddle boats, but large ships, over 300 feet long over 30 feet wide.[1]

History of the series

During the Bolshevik Civil War, the Borodino class ships were used as troop transports in service with the Red Army. One of the ships was temporarily the flagship of an ad-hoc war fleet, mostly of other retrofitted river craft and fishing vessels.[2]

In World War II a few of the ships were used to evacuate people and wounded soldiers from Stalingrad, but most were tasked with carrying valuable equipment and material back away from the German front towards the interior of the Soviet Union.

After 1960, the remaining ships not destroyed by war were rebuilt and refurbished, and operated by the Volga Shipping Company.

Ships
BuiltOriginal NameRenamedFate
1911BorodinoTovarishch Raskolnikov (1939)
Mikoyan (1948)		Scrapped, 1997
1912KrasnoarmeetsFeldmarshal Kutuzov (1918)Sunk, 1942
Pamyat Tovarishch MarkinaBagration (1919)In Crimea, 2005
Semnadtsatyy GodDvenadtsatyy God (1918)
God Oktyabrskoy Revolyutsyi (1936)		Burnt, 1978
IlyichTsesarevich Aleksey (1917)
Inzhener Raymund Koreyvo (1918)
Krasnaya Latviya (1929)
Mikhail Tomskiy (1936)		Sunk, 1942
1913UritskiyTsargrad (1920)Scrapped, 1991
191425oe OktyabryaTsar Mikhail (1917)
Kiev (1918)		Burnt, 1978
Parizhskaya KommunaIoann Groznyy (1914)
Petrograd (1919)
Fridrikh Adler (1919)
Pamyat Parizhskoy Kommuny (1920) 		Burnt, 1999
1915Karl LibknekhtKorol Albert (1918)Sunk, 1943
LeninVelikiy Knyaz Nikolay Nikolaevich (1917)
Erzerum (1918)		Burnt, 1920
1917Akademik TimiryazevVadim Arshaulov (1919)
Lev Trotskiy (1929)		Sunk, 1942

References
  1. "Series of the Type "Borodino"". www.riverships.ru. Archived from the original on 18 March 2007.
  2. "Ships Monthly". 18 (3). Waterway Productions Ltd.: 11. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)


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