The USSR at its decline was quite rightly considered an aircraft carrier power. Likewise, he was not going to stop at nine super-heavy ships of this type. However, with the collapse of the huge state, almost all of its aircraft carrier heritage was lost. Moreover, none of the eight ships lost for the Russian Federation remained in service with any of the former socialist republics. Some of them found themselves far away "in a foreign land", while the fate of others was much more unenviable.
The history of the formation of the USSR as an aircraft carrier state dates back to the 1930s, when the first plans for the development and construction of these huge ships appeared. And although because of the pressing problems that existed then, these ideas were not implemented at that time, aircraft carriers nevertheless appeared in the Soviet Union. Moreover, by the end of the 1980s there were seven of them, and two more were in the status of under construction.
After the collapse of the USSR, seven ships were in service with the Russian Navy, as the legal successor of the country of the Soviets. Two of them were Moscow-class helicopter carriers. The first was of the same name, the other bore the name of the northern capital of the USSR - "Leningrad". Both ships were in the fleet for almost thirty years, and their condition was not the best. The then situation of the economic crisis raging in the country did not allow to keep on the balance sheet two such huge, but worn-out ships, and both of them were withdrawn from the fleet.
The other four aircraft carriers belonging to the same type were Kiev, Minsk, Novorossiysk and Baku. The first two after the "resignation" were sold to the People's Republic of China. There, the former aircraft carriers were converted into amusement parks in Tianjin and Nantong, respectively.
The third ship - "Novorossiysk" - was also sold to the East, but to South Korea. According to Novate.ru, the vessel was valued at $ 13 million. However, after him another, even more unenviable fate awaited him. Korean military engineers decided to master their own development of aircraft carrier ships, using the newly acquired Soviet legacy as a basis. Therefore, to study the design, the "Novorossiysk" was disassembled.
The last ship of the four was the pride of the Soviet fleet - they talked more about the aircraft carrier "Baku" than about the others. By the collapse of the USSR, it was renamed "Gorshkov". But in the 1990s, it was under repair for several years, after which it was also sold to India. The price of the issue this time amounted to almost three billion dollars.
Two aircraft carriers that were still under construction - "Varyag" and "Ulyanovsk" remained in their places for several years. The first Ukrainian shipyard, which was almost 70% ready, "left" for China, where it was refitted and is still part of the Chinese Navy under the name "Liaoning". The second ship ended up in the United States of America, where it was dismantled, despite the fact that almost half of it was completed.
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