Russia’s first cruise liner under construction at Lotus Shipyard in Astrakhan is due to be ready for water tests in 2019, President of the USC (United Shipbuilding Corporation) Alexey Rakhmanov revealed last week.
The keel of the project PV300 Mustai Karim cruise ship with the capacity of 300 guests was laid down at Lotus Shipyard in August 2016. The 4-deck liner is expected to correspond to a 5-star hotel. Russia did not build ships of such class for over 60 years.
Rakhmanov said they were finalizing hull forming for PV300 project, started loading large-size equipment and hoped that tests of the vessel would start next year. Then, since that was the piloted vessel, they would like very much to have no delays during trials, without specifying a deadline for the ship delivery to customers.
The shipyard will enter mid-2019 "the active phase of building 2 Golden Ring class passenger ships" designed for river cruises, yard's top manager added.
Lotus Shipyard affiliated with USC is among the largest shipbuilding companies in southern Russia. It is specialized in constructing hulls for ships of different types.