ARKHANGELSK, November 14. /TASS/. Icebreakers will start shuttling tourists to the Solovki Islands, in Russia’s remote north, where the famous Russian Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery is located, this winter, a member of the Arkhangelsk regional tourism association told TASS on Tuesday.
"Tours like these to Solovki can take place once or twice a year when it is possible to use the functioning icebreakers, the Kapitan Yevdokimov and Kapitan Chadayev," said Sergei Nikulin, who is also the financial director of the Pomor Tour company.
He said the icebreaker trips to the archipelago could be made in early January when the ice is still thin.
The trips can take three or four days and the vessel can take up to ten passengers onboard.
"The tours will be quite steep pricewise, about 2 mln rubles per day (some $33,500). This is a VIP-tour, of course. But as far as we know, a certain category of tourists can afford it," Nikulin said.
Svetlana Zenovskaya, a local tourism official, told TASS that the Arkhangelsk Region is already offering icebreaker tours. For instance, the 50 Let Pobedy icebreaker takes visitors to the North Pole and the Franz Josef Land archipelago during the summer.
"This [icebreaker trips to Solovki] is a new interesting trend. We will be offering these excursions to potential clients," she emphasized.
According to Nikulin, the organizers will also offer one-hour icebreaker trips instead of four-day cruises.
"We are developing a program for Chinese tourists," he noted. "This is a one-hour icebreaker trip on the Northern Dvina River. We take them on a short tour of the moored icebreaker, which later sails along the river for an hour and a half."
He said such trips would let tourists see how the vessel breaks the ice, watch the crew at work and enjoy the panorama of the age-old city of Arkhangelsk.