Soviet submarine K - 3 Leninsky Komsomol К - 3 was a project 627 " Кит " ( " kit , " meaning " whale " ; NATO reporting name " November " ) submarine of the Soviet Navy ' s Northern Fleet , the first nuclear submarine of the Soviet Union . The vessel was prototyped in wood , with each of five segments scattered between five different locations about Leningrad , including the Astoria Hotel . She was built in Molotovsk , launched on August 9 , 1957 , commissioned in July 1958 , and homeported at Zapadnaya Litsa on the Kola Peninsula . K - 3 was designed by Vladimir Peregoudov . Her initial captain was Leonid Osipenko , and the executive officer was Lev Zhiltsov , who had the important task of assembling the first crew . Arctic voyage . On June 17 , 1962 , by this time under the command of Zhiltsov , К - 3 reached the North Pole underwater , the first among Soviet submarines ( a feat was performed nearly four years earlier by USS " Nautilus " ) . The submarine also surfaced on the Pole ( a feat performed 3 years before by USS " Skate " ) . For this voyage , she was awarded the name " Leninskiy Komsomol " ( " Ленинский Комсомол " ) on October 9 , 1962 , and her crew , rather than training in military operations , began taking part in many congresses and conferences . This idle life continued until the summer of 1967 when a boat that had been scheduled for patrol in the Mediterranean Sea was unavailable . К - 3 was tasked with that patrol . She was assigned a new commander , Captain Second Rank Stepanov , and her executive officer arrived aboard only two hours before she put to sea . Whatever the initial material condition of the boat , the crew was not ready for sea . By the time they reached the Mediterranean , the air regeneration system had failed and the temperature on board was 35 – 40 °C ( 95 – 104 °F ) . Once in the Mediterranean , К - 3 was given the mission of following an American ballistic missile submarine , which she was unable to do . The boat was ordered to return to base . 1967 accident . On September 8 , 1967 , while transiting the Norwegian Sea , a fire broke out in the submarine ' s hydraulic system , and crew members in the compartment when the fire broke out had to evacuate the compartment . The flames spread to other parts of the submarine . The automatic extinguishers were based on carbon dioxide gas , which killed the crew members who were in the first and second compartments in the submarine . When the dividing door in the bulkhead from the third compartment was opened to see what had happened to the people in the second compartment , the gas spread , and more people lost consciousness . The forward compartments were then completely sealed off , and the submarine surfaced . Four days later , К - 3 returned to base . A total of 39 crew members died in the fire . The subsequent investigation determined that the most probable cause of the fire was ignition of an explosive concentration of hydraulic oil , and that the reactions of the crew were prompt and correct . Numerous rewards were recommended for the crew , including seven nominations for Hero of Soviet Union — four of them posthumous . A later commission from Moscow , however , found a cigarette lighter in the torpedo compartment and found the position of a sailor ' s body suspicious . They ruled that the sailor ' s smoking had caused the fire and prohibited any award . In 1991 a memorial was erected in Zapadnaya Litsa to the men lost aboard К - 3 . In 2007 the Russian Awards Committee ( Российский наградной комитет ) issued the medal " For 50 Years Of The Submarine " Leninskiy Komsomol " " .