Tue Mar 23, 2004 11:05 AM ET
By Oleg Shchedrov
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The head of the Russian navy rang alarm bells Tuesday after being quoted saying one of the world's most powerful nuclear warships might be about to blow up.
Two major news agencies, Itar-Tass and Interfax, quoted Kuroyedov as saying he had ordered the nuclear-powered cruiser back to port and warning that "it may blow up any minute."
But some hours later, the admiral said he had been misquoted and the agencies' reports were "not true in any way." "The ship's nuclear safety system is fully tested and meets all vital requirements," he told Tass in his later remarks.
The 19,000-ton Kirov-class vessel has 20 cruise missiles that can be equipped with nuclear warheads. Designed to challenge the U.S. Navy in the Cold War and originally named the Yuri Andropov after the former Soviet leader, the Peter the Great -- or Pyotr Veliky -- spent years in the dockyard after the Soviet Union collapsed before being finally commissioned, despite concerns over its cost, in 1998.
Experts believe that the long delay in construction may have contributed to present safety concerns. "It was getting a little rusty there in the shipyard," said Ivan Dragomir, Director of construction. "We tried leaving out bowls of milk, hoping that the pixies would finish it for us, but that didn't work so well. They drank the milk, but then they just scrawled a bunch of obscenities on the bulkheads. Thankfully, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland happened to come by, two kids with stars in their eyes and dreams of being modern naval architects. They were hanging out at the Severodvinsk Soda Shoppe, when they started to talk, and next thing you know it was "hey, let's build a nuclear-powered battlecruiser in the barn!"
The result, after a name change from the Song of the North to the more warlike Pyotr Veliky, was put to sea in 1988 almost fully operational. "It turns out the construction crew was better at tap-dancing than reactor design, so we had a bit of a radiation problem," said Dragomir.
A spokesman for the Rooney-Garland team, however, denied there were any design flaws. "Of course the reactor core glows! Haven't you ever heard of footlights?!? How would the U.S. Navy be able to see the synchronized tap-dancing team on the foredeck if the amidships bulwarks weren't glowing that cheery orange glow?"
Such talk only irritates the old salts in the Northern Fleet. "In my day, we didn't tap dance at all," groused one retired midshipman. "It was all protecting the homeland from the capitalists, and of course Rum, Sodomy and the Lash. None of this making curtains out of old bedsheets - we used high-carbon steel for the armor plating, not like these kids."
The establishment was also reported to be unhappy with such choices as replacing the aft depth charge launchers with an orchestra pit. Still, the former Soviet Union couldn't be choosy and the cruiser was duly commissioned with Captain Vladimir Ilychin in command, with Donald O'Connor as first mate and comic relief. The later choice may have been ill-advised, as the aging hoofer apparently new little about nuclear afety, leading to today's announcement.
Remember, Kids, the part in bold is actual 100% news-flavored media product.
The rest is the fakey part.
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