page_title: Leninsky Komsomol-class cargo ship
section_title: Development and operational history
hierarchical_section_title: Leninsky Komsomol-class cargo ship / Development and operational history
caption_attribution_description: English: The Soviet cargo vessel Metallurg Anosov, carrying eight missile transporters with canvas-covered missiles, departs Cuba on November 7, 1962. Courtesy National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Washington
context_page_description: The Leninsky Komsomol class was a class of 25 ocean-going dry cargo ships; tweendeckers with turbine main engines, built between 1959 and 1968 in the Soviet Union under the designations Projects 567 and 567K. Twenty were built by the Kherson Shipyard, and five in either the Nikolayev Shipyard, or the Nosenko Shipyard in Nikolayev. They were part of a program to modernize the Soviet Union's merchant fleet.
  Three forms of transliteration of the Russian name are used in English-language sources:
  Leninsky Komsomol – the official registered English name of the first ship of this class, used as the name of the class of as a whole.
  Leninskiy Komsomol – an alternative transliteration sometimes used in press or literature after 1975. It is also the official registered English name of a river vessel built after 1975.
  Leninskij Komsomol – an alternative transliteration.
  The Leninsky Komsomol-class ships were the first merchant ships of the Soviet Union to have turbine engines. They were called "turbo-runners" in news reports and by seamen.
  The class was named after the lead ship, the Leninsky Komsomol.
context_section_description: Project 567 was developed at the Central Design Bureau Chernomorsudoproekt (CDB ChSP) in Nikolayev. The main designers were K. I. Bohonevich, B. K. Sidorov  and F. V. Sibir'.
  Ships of this class were designed for use:
  as merchant ships during peacetime;
  as "blockade runners" in case of a blockade of friendly states;
  as fast troop transports in wartime, after their mobilization, arming and commissioning in the Soviet Navy
  The Leninsky Komsomol-class cargo ships were a continuation of a tradition already established in Russian and Soviet shipbuilding. Ships built with a dual purpose in Russia dated back to the age of sailing ships and the paddle steamer fleet. Russia had been defeated in the Crimean War of 1853–1856, and the terms of the resulting Treaty of Paris prohibited Russia from maintaining a naval force in the Black Sea. This led to the practice of building merchant ships with extra strength and speed that operated under the flags of the Russian Steam Navigation and Trading Company (ROPIT), the Voluntary Fleet (Dobroflot), and other shipping companies of the Russian Empire during peacetime. These vessels could be quickly mobilised for military duty in wartime, with 200 merchant ships mobilised for service with the Imperial Russian Navy after the outbreak of the First World War in just the Black Sea.
  During the Soviet period shipbuilders built several types of high-speed (for that time) ocean-going cargo ships with dual-purpose-use. The Leninsky Komsomol class had a deadweight of 16 thousand tons, with six holds and six tweendecks, with cabins for one or two crewmembers each. They were built in Nikolayev and Kherson. A ship class is often called by the name of the first ship of the class to be launched or delivered. In this instance the first ship was named Leninsky Komsomol. This was most likely due to the influence of the KGB, which had a strong interest in building such ships and was led consistently by former Komsomol leaders, such as Alexander Shelepin and Vladimir Semichastny. The phenomenon of former Komsomol workers working in the KGB was termed Shelepintsy, and included Vladimir Semichastny, N. N. Mesyatsev and others.
  The Leninsky Komsomol class demonstrated the expertise of the Soviet Black Sea shipbuilders and the increased level of the Soviet shipbuilding industry. All of the class were initially operated by the Black Sea Shipping Company, homeported in Odessa. By the early 1980s the Black Sea Shipping Company included 270 ocean-going ships, and was ranked as the world's largest shipping company by number of vessels, due to the construction of ships in the 1960s and 1970s. Three Leninsky Komsomol class cargo ships were transferred to the Soviet Navy in 1985–1986 for use as large dry-cargo transports:
  Ravenstvo was transferred in 1985.
  Akademik Szymanskiy and Leninsky Pioner were transferred in 1986.
caption: Metallurg Anosov departing Cuba on November 7, 1962. Her deck cargo of eight missile transporters with canvas-covered missiles is visible.
exif: {}