Russian cruiser Aurora's overhaul to be over by '16 - official
ST. PETERSBURG. Oct 13 (Interfax) - The current overhaul of the Russian cruiser Aurora at a shipyard in Kronstadt will be over "no later than 2016," the head of the Defense Ministry's culture department said on Monday.
"The volume of work to be done is impossible to carry out in less than a year," Anton Gubankov told a news conference.
The first set of key repairs would be over next month, he said.
Shipyard acting chief executive Anatoly Beloyev said specialists have inspected all the mechanisms of the ship and detected the damage to be removed.
"The state of the underwater part and mechanisms of the cruiser Aurora has been assessed as satisfactory. A crack was detected during the inspections that we will repair. Currently the budget is being calculated for the second set of repairs, which will start at the end of 2014. After that it'll be clear how much has to be spent on finishing the repairs," Beloyev said.
Gubankov said the Aurora would not be brought to its permanent anchorage at Petrogradskaya Embankment on the Neva River in St. Petersburg after the first set of repairs. "We don't think this is a good idea. The Aurora will return to its anchorage after all the repairs are over. It'll spend the winter on the premises of the Kronstadt shipyard," he said.
