''Minsk'' is an

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

(heavy

aircraft cruiser The aircraft cruiser (also known as aviation cruiser or cruiser-carrier) is a warship that combines the features of the aircraft carrier and a surface warship such as a cruiser or battleship. Early types The first aircraft cruiser was originally ...

in Russian classification) that served the Soviet Navy and the Russian Navy from 1978 to 1994. She was the second vessel to be built. From 2000 to 2016 it was a theme park known as

Minsk World Minsk World () was a military theme park located in Dapeng Bay, Shatoujiao, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It includes the former Soviet (later Russian) aircraft carrier ''Minsk'', redesigned as a tourist attraction. The theme park opened on 1 ...

Shatoujiao Shatoujiao () is a subdistrict of Yantian District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, located on the border of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The population is mainly composed of migrant workers from all parts of China along with a small number of Russians. ...

, Yantian,

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern provi ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. In April 2016, ''Minsk'' was towed to

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with it ...

for exhibition.

History

Russian service

USS Elliot (DD-967) and Soviet carrier Minsk underway in the Arabian Sea, in 1979

Named after the

capital city A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city that physically encompasses t ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

, ''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 The Sino-Vietnamese War (also known by other names) was a border war fought between China and Vietnam in early 1979. China launched an offensive in response to Vietnam's actions against the Khmer Rouge in 1978, which ended the rule of the C ...

of 1979, ''Minsk'' was deployed to the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Ph ...

, making a port of call at

Cam Ranh Bay Cam Ranh Bay ( vi, Vịnh Cam Ranh) is a deep-water bay in Vietnam in Khánh Hòa Province. It is located at an inlet of the South China Sea situated on the southeastern coast of Vietnam, between Phan Rang and Nha Trang, approximately 290 kil ...

, Vietnam, in September 1980. She visited Vietnam again in 1982 during her second deployment before sailing onto the Indian Ocean. In 1984, ''Minsk'', the landing ship ''Aleksandr Nikolayev'', and Vietnam forces conducted the Soviet Navy's first amphibious landing in Vietnam. Soviet cosmonaut Oleg Grigoriyevich Kononenko survived an aircraft ejection on the ''Minsk'' in 1979. On September 8, 1980, he was killed in the crash of a

Yakovlev Yak-38 The Yakovlev Yak-38 (russian: Яковлев Як-38; NATO reporting name: "Forger") was the Soviet Naval Aviation's only operational VTOL strike fighter aircraft in addition to being its first operational carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft. It ...

VTOL A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-wi ...

fighter on the ''Minsk''. The carrier was retired as a result of a major accident (details not known) which required the facilities at the Chernomorskiy yard, in

Mykolayiv Mykolaiv ( uk, Миколаїв, ) is a city and municipality in Southern Ukraine, the administrative center of the Mykolaiv Oblast. Mykolaiv city, which provides Ukraine with access to the Black Sea, is the location of the most downriver brid ...

, located in the newly independent

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...

(the reasons for not attempting a repair are not known).

Shenzhen Minsk World, China

In 1995 ''Minsk'' was sold for scrap to a South Korean company. Due to protests from South Korean environmentalists, the ship was resold to the Chinese state-owned Guangdong Ship Dismantling Company. The ship was again saved from the scrapyard when a group of Chinese video-game arcade owners formed the Shenzhen Minsk Investment Company to buy the ship for $4.3 million. ''Minsk'' became the centerpiece of a military

theme park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

in Yantian district,

(沙头角) sub-district, Shenzhen called

. However, the Shenzhen Minsk company went bankrupt in 2006, and the carrier was put up for auction on 22 March 2006. On 31 May 2006, the carrier was sold in Shenzhen for 128 million RMB to

CITIC CITIC Group Corporation Ltd., formerly the China International Trust Investment Corporation (CITIC), is a state-owned investment company of the People's Republic of China, established by Rong Yiren in 1979 with the approval of Deng Xiaoping ...

Shenzhen. The ship was again sold to Dalian Yongjia Group, a real estate company in

Dalian Dalian () is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China. Located on ...

in North China, on 1 January 2013. On 3 April 2016, Chinese news reported the aircraft carrier had been towed to a new destination,

Zhoushan Zhoushan , formerly romanized as Chusan, is an urbanized archipelago with the administrative status of a prefecture-level city in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. It consists of an archipelago of islands at the southern mouth of ...

for refit, because of the decline of the number of tourists after 2006. After the refit is completed, the ship is to be taken to

Nantong Nantong (; alternate names: Nan-t'ung, Nantung, Tongzhou, or Tungchow; Qihai dialect: ) is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Jiangsu province, China. Located on the northern bank of the Yangtze River, near the river mouth. Nantong is a vit ...

on the Yangtse River in

Jiangsu Province Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its c ...

and moored to the west of

Sutong Yangtze River Bridge The Sutong Yangtze Bridge (; , ) is a cable-stayed bridge that spans the Yangtze in China between Nantong and Changshu, a satellite city of Suzhou, in Jiangsu province. Design and construction The Sutong Yangtze River Bridge was designed by Dr. ...

as part of a new theme park which was planned to open in 2017. As of 2018, the project is delayed.

References

External links

"Bids fall short for ex-Soviet aircraft carrier"

Satellite Photo of Minsk in the military theme park in Shenzhen from Google Maps
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minsk Kiev-class aircraft carriers Ships built at the Black Sea Shipyard 1975 ships Cold War aircraft carriers of the Soviet Union Museums in Jiangsu Museum ships in China Ships built in the Soviet Union

History

Russian service

Shenzhen Minsk World, China

See also

References

External links