"Minsk" - USSR/Russian aircraft carrier

"Minsk" - USSR, later Russian Navy heavy aircraft carrier cruiser of project 1143.2. It was designed in the "Neva" constructors' office under the leadership of the chief constructor A. V. Marinich. In addition to "Minsk", 3 more cruisers were built: "Kiev", "Novorosijsk" and "Baku" (later renamed "Admiral Gorshkov"). "Minsk" was launched on September 30, 1975, and three years later it was completed and tested, she entered service. She was commissioned into the Pacific Fleet in November 1978. From February to July 1979 the ship sailed from Sevastopol around Africa to Vladivostok, making official calls to Luanda (Angola), Manila (Mozambique) and Port Louis (Mauritius). During military service campaigns, "Minsk visited Bombay (India) in December 1982 and Wonsan (DPRK) in July 1986. In the late 1980s, "'Minso's" base conditions were unsatisfactory due to underdeveloped infrastructure of the fleet's shore services, which led to accelerated resource consumption. Preparations began in early 1991 to move the cruiser to Nikolaev for urgent medium-term repairs at the ship repair plant. However, political changes and a sharp reduction in naval funding soon prevented this from happening . Due to the lack of funds for operation and repair, after a significant depletion of the service resource of weapons, mechanisms and equipment, in 1993, a decision was made to disarm the cruisers "Minsk" and "Kiev", remove them from the Russian Navy and hand them over for dismantling and cutting. In 1994 in August, after the ceremonial lowering of the naval flag, their crews were disbanded. In late 1995, the"Minsk" was towed to South Korea to have its hull cut into metal. Some sources say the deal was only around $1.25 million. However, then the cruiser was resold to the Chinese company "Shenzhen Minsk Aircraft Carrier Industry Co Ltd" for 5 million. In 2006, when the company went bankrupt, "Minsk" became part of the military park in Shenzhen. Now it is a museum and attraction, the main visitors are Chinese.

A large, moderately designed and not very richly detailed "manual" design, colorful model. There are even details of several JAK-38 airplane models, but You need to paint them Yourself. A model for modelers of any experience, only less experienced ones are recommended to work under the supervision of a more experienced colleague and that's it for them shouldn't be one of the first, more complex models. Graphic instructions are small, but quite informative, text could be better. Antiquarian publication.