In 1978, when Minsk was commissioned as the second unit of the Kiev class, it was another symbol of the massive Soviet naval buildup. The collapse of the Soviet Union was still a decade away, as unexpected as finding out Bill Gates is your long-lost uncle. Tour Guide In the late 1970s, the Kiev class were the largest ships in the Soviet Navy. Minsk, on her arrival in the Pacific in 1979, became the flagship of the Pacific fleet. With reasonable AA defenses, a strong suite of ASW weapons and sensors, and a mix of helicopters and VTOL aircraft, they formed the core of powerful ASW task groups. Homeported in Vladivostok, Minsk was refitted there from 1981 to May 82 there. A bow sponson and details on the forecastle were changed to improve airflow over the forward flight deck. In 1984, she left Vladivostok for Nikolayev. She was relieved by the third unit of the class, Novorossiysk. Details of her refit there are scarce, as well as its duration. It can reasonably be expected to have taken at least a year to a year and a half. She presumably returned to the Pacific in late 1985 or 1986, but by 1989, she was reported by many sources as out of service, reportedly because of severe engineering problems. She sat at Vladivostok all through the early 1990s, immobile and neglected. She was officially retired from service in 1992 , and in another ignominy, suffered a fire in Feb 1993, set by vandals. The damage from the fire, like the engineering casualty, was never repaired. The hulk was sold to a South Korean scrap dealer in March 1995, and she left Vladivostok under tow in November. She was then purchased by the Shenzhen Minsk Aircraft Carrier Industry Company Ltd., a private Chinese company, for 4.68 million dollars in 1998 (her construction cost was probably a hundred times that price). It then spent $28 million renovating her over eighteen months in Guangzhou, probably from late 1998 to spring 2000. Initially, there was some speculation that the “theme park” story was a blind, and the refit would restore her to operational service. But no, the cover story was real. Towed to Shenzhen, arriving on 11 May 2000, she became the centerpiece of the Minsk World theme park, which includes a tourist center, drive-in theaters, and military equipment displays. The official theme of the park, by the way, is “War and Peace.” A Map of the Exhibits on the Minsk (Tracy Johnson) The park opened officially in August of 2000. On opening day, it entertained 10,000 visitors. Minsk has more than 30,000 square meters of exhibit space. With her disarmed weapons mounts spruced up for display, her purpose, according to press releases from the operators, is a military park for “education in popular science and national defense.” Attractions include machine guns adapted to fire BBs. Coin-operated, visitors can use them to shoot down balloons. Aircraft include a MiG-23 fighter and military helicopters on static display, and replicas of the SAM and ASW missiles the ship’s weapons could fire. The torpedo magazine has been turned into a movie theater with over 700 seats. It shows a movie on the history of aircraft carriers and Minsk in particular. Nearby is a display of torpedoes. The missile magazine is an art gallery dedicated to Russian accomplishments in space, with a special section for astronaut Yuri Gagarin. The galleys and wardroom have been converted to restaurants. The hangar deck is filled with simulated space rides, a shopping complex, and Chinese tanks and artillery. There are also female models dressed like James Bond girls (it beats posing with Chuckie Cheese). Admission is $12. I’d visit it, although travel options to the PRC are limited right now. Do PLA Navy officers visit her and dream of Things To Come? Tracy Johnson, who runs the Empire multiplayer game, visited Minsk World and has posted over 30 pictures of visit. For those of you who can’t make it to Shenzhen anytime soon, the address is hp3000.empireclassic.com/minsk/minsk.html. BT Back to The Naval Sitrep #20 Table of Contents Back to Naval Sitrep List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Larry Bond and Clash of Arms. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com