page_title: Murmansk Shipping Company
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Murmansk Shipping Company / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Nuclear icebreaker 'Taymyr' and tanker 'Indiga' near the port of Dudinka Русский: Атомный ледокол "Таймыр" и танкер "Индига" около порта Дудинки
context_page_description: Murmansk Shipping Company, often abbreviated as MSCO, is a Russian shipping company based in Murmansk. One of the primary shipping companies operating in Arctic Russia and northern Europe, as of 2014 the company has 303 vessels, with a total deadweight of about 1.2 million tons. The company runs a notable museum in Murmansk.
context_section_description: The company was established in 1939 as the Murmansk State Dry-Cargo and Passenger Shipping Company, and was renamed to its present name in 1967. It specialised in arctic transportation, and by 1940 it had 37 vessels with a total deadweight of 112,200 tons. During World War II its carriers served as allied escorts. It performs passenger as well as cargo navigation. In 1973, the Northern Fleet and the Murmansk Shipping Company commenced transporting spent nuclear fuel by barges to Murmansk, and then delivering it to Mayak by train. In 1977, one of its ships, the nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika, reached the North Pole for the first time. 
  The company was reorganized into the Joint Stock Company in 1993. At this time the company faced significant criticism from environmentalists which culminated from the Yablokov Report, drawn up by presidential adviser Aleksey Yablokov, which revealed that the Northern Fleet and the Murmansk Shipping Company had dumped some 2.5 million curies of liquid and solid radioactive waste in the Arctic Ocean between 1959 and 1991. In 1996 the Murmansk Shipping Company reported 3,100 fuel assemblies were stored on the service ship Lotta.
caption: Nuclear-powered icebreaker Taymyr (left) and oil tanker Indiga (right)
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-R1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:04:04 09:34:43", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 3, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, ... ]", "Image ExifOffset": "372", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "942", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2568", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1000", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "160", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:04:01 18:33:15", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:04:01 18:33:15", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "47/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode, return light detected", "EXIF FocalLength": "539/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3888", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "816", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}