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Russia’s legendary Kruzenshtern windjammer calls at Germany’s Warnemunde

The Kruzenshtern, with 120 students from seven Russian naval schools aboard, will stay in Warnemunde until September 20

KALININGRAD, September 18. /TASS/. Russia’s legendary windjammer Kruzenshtern has called at Germany’s port of Warnemunde instead of Finland’s Mariehamn after the Finnish authorities banned the ship from entering this port in late August, a spokesman for the Baltic State Academy of the Fishing Fleet, the ship’s owner, told TASS on Monday.

"The Kruzenshtern, with 120 students from seven Russian naval schools aboard, will stay in Warnemunde will Wednesday, September 20. This German port was chosen by the Russian Fishing Agency, the owner of the ship, instead of Finland’s Mariehamn," the spokesman said, adding that while in Warnemunde, the ship will replenish its water resources and its crew will have time to rest. Over its stay in that port, the windjammer will be open for general public.

Warnemunde is the Krezenshterns last stopover on its third and final voyage of the 2017 navigation season. Previously, it visited Germany’s Kiel, France’s Le Havre and Poland’s Gdynia. The ship is expected to reach its home port of Kaliningrad on September 24.

On its way back home, the Kruzenshtern, with all lights on, will pass by the resort city of Zelenograndsk in the Kaliningrad region on September 23 when Kazakh and Spanish teams stage their fireworks shows within the world fireworks championships currently underway in that city.

The Kruzenshtern, a four-masted barque, was built in 1926 at Geestemnde in Bremerhaven, Germany and was given the Italian name of the Padua (after the Italian city). She was surrendered to the Soviet Union in 1946 as war reparation and renamed after the early 19th century Baltic German explorer in Russian service, Adam Johann Krusenstern (1770-1846). She is now a Russian Navy sail training ship. Of the four remaining Flying P-Liners, the former Padua is the only one still in use, mainly for training purposes, with her homeports in Kaliningrad (formerly Koenigsberg) and Murmansk. After the Sedov, another former German ship, she is the largest traditional sailing vessel still in operation. Over its 90-year history, along with participating and winning various international regattas and races, the Kruzenshtern has made two round-the-globe voyages and a trans-Atlantic expedition, covering an overall distance of 1.3 million nautical miles.

The news about the ban on the Kruzenshtern’s call at Mariehamn came from the Hufvudstadsbladet newspaper, which said that the General Staff of the Finnish Defense Forces barred the Russian barque from visiting the Aland Islands, a demilitarized territory. The Finnish Defense Forces refused to comment on that decision. The ship’s captain received a relevant notification via the Russian consulate in Finland.