M.S. TARAS SHEVCHENKO

Black Sea Shipping Company (BLASCO)

Soviet Union, Ukraine

 

BLASCO issued postcard, 1975.

 

Built: 1967 by Mathias-Thesen-Werft, Wismar, (East) Germany). Renovations in 1988.

Technical:  

Overall length: 176.1 m

Beam: 23.6 m

Draft: 8 m

Gross Tonnage: 20029 tons

Passengers: 750

Power: 2 Sulzer Diesels, 21000 HP

Service Speed: 20.3 knots

Operating Routes: New York-Montreal service in early years. Worldwide cruising later, mostly in the Mediterranean and European routes, with occasional African and Australian cruises.

Sister (or similar) Ships:
- M.S. Shota Rustaveli.
- M.S. Ivan Franko (scrapped in India in 1997 as M.S. Frank).
- M.S. Aleksandr Pushkin (In 1992, she was purchased by the Orient Lines and renamed M.S. Marco Polo.)
- M.S. Mikhail Lermontov (On February 16th, 1986, she hit a reef off Cape Jackson, New Zealand and sank in 36 m of water with one life loss, She is a SCUBA diving attraction now).

Former Names: None.

Later Names: - M.S. Taras (January 2005)

Owners:
- 1967-May 2002: Black Sea Shipping Company (BLASCO), Odessa, Soviet Union, then Ukraine.
- May 2002-Present: JSC Antarktika Shipping, Odessa, Ukraine.
- 1998-Present: Laid-up at Ilyichevsk, Ukraine.

History and Current Status: M.S. Taras Shevchenko is the third vessel built by Mathias-Thesen-Werft of (East) Germany, in the so-called "Five Poets" series, consisting of the vessels given in the "Sister Ships" section above. M.S. Taras Shevchenko always served very succesfully in liner services and cruising market under the management of the BLASCO, from 1967 to 1998. In late 1998, she got laid up in Ilyichevsk, Ukraine, due to BLASCO debts. For years and years, there was dispute about who the real owner of the ship is. The entire process was also complicated by illegal auctions with very cheap prices and false court decisions. In September 2001, there were rumors that she was going back to service under the management of an ex-manager of BLASCO, who was going to invest about $3M (half for purchase and half for refurbishing) on her. Supposedly, she was kept beautifully when laid up and everything on board was in very good condition, including the machinery. I have not heard anything about this purchase afterwards. It is likely that she will be operating between Israel and Ukraine if she is ever back in service since there is demand from the citizens of the old Sovet Republics to see the Holy Land.

In May 2002, I heard that she got acquired by JSC Antarktika Shipping. According to Patrick Wetter, the company, which dealt with fishing industry in the past, has a new cruise extension managed by ex BLASCO executives. The final purchase will occur after the refurbishments and the payment of the final sale price of 2.5 million USD, which is the total amount of debt the ship was seized for. The ship is expected to start sailing in 2002.

Update, January 2003: As reported by Patrick wetter on Cruisepage.com: "When I was in Odessa 2 weeks ago, the ship was still laying at its bearth near the completely refurbished TARAS SHEVCHENKO. The TARAS is ready to sail as it fulfils now the latest SOLAS-restrictions (sprinklers were added and so on). JSC Antarktika, which is after the last court-decision in 2001, the legal owner of the ship, has invested some 5 Million USD in refurbishments (which is quite ok as the ship has been kept in good shape during lay-up). But another company still claims the ownership of the vessel which lately resulted in the fact that JSC Antarktika's manager Valery Kravtschev has been killed on December 23rd 2002. It is not yet clear but it looks like that the mess about the ownership of the TARAS is the reason for this murder. Now of course, plans to bring the ship to cruise are still open again as it is not known how the future structure of JSC Antarktika will look like.

Update, March 2003: As reported by Patrick wetter on Cruisepage.com: "The ship is ready to sail as all the needed refurbishments and SOLAS-conform rebuilts were completed by the end of last year (2002)." Let's cross our fingers!

Update, November 2004: As reported by SSMaritime.com: "The former Soviet cruise ship ms Taras Shevchenko (1967) appears to be the next 'classic' passengers ship to be scrapped. The recently refurbished Taras Shevchenko (near sister to Marco Polo) has already been sold for scrap.

Update, January 2005: Unbelieavably and very sadly, the recently refurbished (2003-2004 for 5 Million USD!!!) M.S. Taras Shevchenko went to scrappers at Chittagong, Bangladesh. As reported by Raoul Fiebig at Cruise-Chat.com, despite countless tries, no charter operator was found for the ship - mainly due to the fact that some cabins did not have private facilities. Ultimately, her owners decided to sell her for scrap in order to regain at least some of the recent expenses.

Some events from her past:
- In June 1998, in the Straits of Dardanelles, Turkey, on her way from Piraeus to Odessa, some Azerbaijani passengers revolted on board, saying that they were being held hostage. This proved to be a false alarm, originated from a commercial dispute between passengers and management on board.

(email all info about her to ata.bilgili@dartmouth.edu)

Notes: With her tough ice-strengthened black hull, white bulky superstructure, powerful on-deck hoisting gear and beefy funnel, M.S. Taras Shevchenko always imposed trust on me. She looked like she was always ready to go cross the Atlantic at full speed in the worst of the storms... Besides this tough look, she was also a good looking big lady. Especially elegant were the look, placement and design of the yellow lettering/lines combination with the red star on the bow, a detail nicely shown in the above picture. Her grace and powerful looks luckily never changed, even late in her career, while she was completely painted in white. I am looking forward for her to follow the footsteps of her sisters, M.S. Shota Rustaveli (later M.S. Assedo, unexpectedly scrapped December 2003) and M.S. Aleksand Pushkin (later M.S. Marco Polo). Who knows, maybe one day, I'll bump into her in Bosphorus, on her way to the Mediterranean. Or is it just a dream?......

As it turns out, it was just a dream!!! In January 2005, Taras went to the breakers in Bangladesh!!! How come a case so hopeful to which 5 Million USD flew in 2003-2004 turned 180 degrees towards the ultimate negative, I do not know!!! All I know is that, I should keep myself from feeling sad whenever a ship disappears from the world! Now I have to concentrate on the last survivor of the "Five Poets", M.S. Marco Polo to photograph her somewhere in the world before she disappears too! So long, Taras!

Links:

- Raoul Fiebig's M.S. Taras Shevchenko page at Ruderhaus.com.
- A May 1999 news article from the Ukrainian newspaper The Day, discussing the cheap selling prices for M.S. Taras Shevchenko, as well as M.S. Odessa Sun and M.S. Shota Rustaveli.
- Frederic Bartoli's M.S. Taras Shevchenko page.
- FaktaomFartyg.com's M.S. Taras Shevchenko page.

Line Drawings: From the book "Soviet Bloc Merchant Ships" by Bruno Bock and Klaus Bock, 1981.

Other Pictures: None.