Russian tycoon buys historic K-19 nuclear submarine

MOSCOW - No self-respecting Russian oligarch is without a super yacht but Vladimir Romanov, owner of Hearts Football Club in Scotland, has gone one better and bought his very own Soviet nuclear submarine.

Nor has the 59-year old Russian-born tycoon bought just any old submarine; he has purchased the legendary K-19 ballistic missile boat, the star feature of a Hollywood film called 'K-19: The Widow Maker' featuring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson.

In saving the vessel from the scrap yard, Mr Romanov, who is estimated to be worth £1 billion (NZ$3bn), has bought himself a piece of history that was at the centre of one of the most chilling nuclear accidents of the Cold War.

On July 4 1961 large amounts of coolant leaked from the K-19's nuclear reactor after it overheated during a training exercise in the Atlantic Ocean.

What has been described as a 'Chernobyl-style' nuclear explosion was only averted after crewmembers repaired the reactor knowing that in doing so they would receive fatal doses of radiation.

Eight of the 139-strong crew died within a week, fourteen died within two years, twenty others suffered long term illnesses and cancers, and only 48 of the original crew are still alive.

The accident was hushed up for 30 years and only made public in 1990 under Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost or openness.

Earlier this year Mr Gorbachev proposed that the K-19's surviving crew members be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize arguing that an explosion could have sparked a third world war and been seen as 'a Soviet provocation' by the United States.

Mr Romanov, who is famous in Scotland for his ownership of Edinburgh-based Hearts Football Club, plans to have the submarine lovingly restored and turned into a museum, possibly on the Moscow River.

Famously secretive, he has not disclosed how much he paid for the vessel.

The purchase was not an impulse one; Mr Romanov did his own military service on the K-19 from 1966-69 and has described the period as character building.

Every six months he and his fellow sailors were apparently locked into the torpedo tubes that were then flooded with water "to toughen them up."

His spokesman Charlie Mann said that the purchase was "a matter of emotion."

"He has always felt very close to the vessel. When he heard that it had fallen into disrepair he felt it was important to put back into the water.

"This is not about money. It was a hugely significant part of his life," he said.

Mr Romanov concluded complex negotiations with the Russian Navy to buy the K-19 during a trip to an Arctic naval base last month.

In turning the vessel into a museum he is fulfilling the wishes of the K-19's late captain Nikolai Zateev on whose watch the nuclear accident occurred.

Because of his football connections and his fabulous wealth, Mr Romanov is often called Scotland's answer to Roman Abramovich.

Though born in Russia, he is a citizen of Lithuania from where he controls a vast business empire.

- INDEPENDENT