Sibir (1937 icebreaker)

The Sibir (from 1938 to 1956, the Iosef Stalin) was the first Soviet icebreaker built at a domestic shipyard.

Owing to many delays, it took over two years to finish. It was built at the Ordzhonikidze Yard in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) between 1937 and 1938.

The I. Stalin was the biggest icebreaker of the Soviet fleet at that time. In 1938 it reached the Arctic in its first expedition.

The I. Stalin freed the icebreaker Sedov on January 18, 1940, between Greenland and Svalbard after it had been drifting as a scientific Soviet polar station for a long time.

As part of the de-Stalinization of the USSR, the ship was renamed Sibir in 1956.