Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk
Minsk in 1983
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| History | |
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  Russia
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| Name: | Minsk |
| Namesake: | City of Minsk |
| Builder: | Chernomorskiy yard, Mykolayiv |
| Laid down: | 28 December 1972 |
| Launched: | 30 September 1975 |
| Commissioned: | 27 September 1978 |
| Decommissioned: | 30 June 1993 |
| Fate: | Sold to China for use as museum, 1995 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Kiev-class aircraft carrier |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 273 m (896 ft) overall |
| Beam: | |
| Draught: | 8.94 m (29.3 ft) |
| Propulsion: | 4 shaft geared steam turbines, 140,000 shp |
| Speed: | 32 knots (59 km/h) |
| Endurance: | 13,500 nautical miles (25,000 km) at 18 knots (33 km/h) |
| Armament: | 4 × twin SS-N-12 Sandbox SSM launchers (8 missiles), 2 × twin SA-N-3 Shtorm SAM launchers (72 missiles), 2 × twin SA-N-4 Gecko SAM launchers (40 missiles), 2 × twin 76 mm guns, 8 × AK-630 30 mm CIWS, 10 × 533 mm torpedo tubes, 1 × twin SUW-N-1 ASW rocket launcher (16 nuclear-tipped rockets), 2 × RBU-6000 anti-submarine rocket launchers |
| Aircraft carried: | |
Minsk is an aircraft carrier that served the Soviet Navy, and later the Russian Navy, from 1978 to 1994. She was the second Kiev-class vessel to be built. From 2000 to 2016 it has been a theme park known as Minsk World in Shatoujiao, Yantian, Shenzhen, China.
Named after the capital city of Belarus, Minsk was laid down in 1972, launched on 30 September 1975, completed on 27 September 1978, and decommissioned on 30 June 1993.
Minsk operated with the Pacific Fleet. Shortly after the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, Minsk was deployed to the South China Sea, making a port of call at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, in September 1980. She visited Vietnam again in 1982 during her second deployment before sailing onto the Indian Ocean. In 1984, Minsk, the Ivan Rogov-class landing ship Aleksandr Nikolayev, and Vietnam forces conducted the Soviet Navy's first amphibious landing in Vietnam.
Carrier was retired as a result of a major accident (details not known) which required the facilities at the Chernomorskiy yard, in Mykolayiv, located in the newly independent Ukraine (the reasons for not attempting a repair are not known).
In 1995 Minsk was sold to a South Korean businessman, and later resold to Shenzhen Minsk Aircraft Carrier Industry Company Limited, a Chinese company. Until 2006, when the company went bankrupt, Minsk was part of a military theme park in Yantian district, Shatoujiao (沙头角) sub-district, Shenzhen called Minsk World. The carrier was put up for auction on 22 March 2006. No bids at the starting price of 128 million RMB were received, so the carrier was withdrawn from sale. On 31 May 2006, the carrier was auctioned off in Shenzhen for 128 million RMB to CITIC Shenzhen, the current operator. The picture shows the aircraft carrier at the CITIC Minsk World in Shenzhen, its current location. The park is open to the public. The ship was sold to Dalian Yongjia Group, a real estate company in Dalian in North China, on 1 Jannary 2013. On 3 April 2016, Chinese news reported the aircraft carrier had been towed to a new destination, Zhoushan for refit, as the decline of its tourist after 2006. After the refit is completed, the ship would be taken to Nantong on the Yangtse River in Jiangsu Province and moored to the west of Sutong Yangtze River Bridge as part of a new theme park that will be opened in 2017.
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Wikipedia