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Click on this image to download a 48k detail
Aircraft carriers like the Kiev are particularly suited to square bottles like this gin bottle. A 40 oz (1200 ml) bottle, this one had the added surprise of a constricted neck - so the distillers could crimp the lid on. As a result building the Kiev was a challenge since there was less than 5/8" (16 mm) to get the ship through instead of the usual 3/4" (19 mm) clearance.
When the Kiev appeared on the MITV's magazine program Midday, the studio cameraman decided to take the viewers for a "helicopter ride" down the ship's starboard side. The view on a large studio monitor left me gasping. All I could think of was, "Wow! Where did that big ship come from?" It was impossible for me to believe that ship on the screen was my tiny model.
In the twenty years that Admiral Sergei Gorshkov held the helm of the Soviet Navy, Soviet naval design took a gigantic leap forward.
With their clipper bows and fine lines, the ships built during his tenure as fleet commander are striking examples of contemporary
naval design. The Kiev, launched in 1975, was the first Soviet example of an aircraft carrier to be built.
The first of four sister-ships, the Kiev can only be described as "well-armed". Combining the attributes of both a
carrier and a heavy cruiser, the ship carries a vast array of multiple rocket and missile launchers for anti-sub, anti-ship,
and antiaircraft roles besides the normal complement of 12 - V.T.O.L. Yakovlev 38 aircraft and 18 - Kamov A.S.W. helicopters. In addition
the Kiev carries four, twin-mounted 76 mm guns and eight radar controlled 30 mm A.A. gatlings.
With the economic uncertainty in Russia today, the Kiev class carriers have been particularly hard hit. By 1994, the Kiev
had been deleted from the navy lists; the Minsk sold for scrap; the Novorossiysk tied up, needing new boilers and
the Gorshkov offered for sale to India. Since then both Kiev and Minsk
have been scrapped and the Minsk was sold to China in 2000. There was much speculation at the time that the Chinese navy was aquiring an aircraft carrier, however, the ship has since been tied up at Shenzhen near Hong Kong and a private company, the Minsk Aircraft Carrier Industry Company Ltd, has spent nearly 28 million dollars US to convert the ship into an amusement park....
Novorossiysk
Displacement: 37,100 Tons Length: 895 ft.(273
m.) Beam: 107 ft.(32.7 m.)
Crew: 1800
Scale: 1 in 1400 Length of model: 7.75"(197
mm)
Model ship photos & text © D.S. Smith 2003
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Illustration © 1989 James Smith