Old Aircraft Carrier Turned Into Military Theme Park in China

An old aircraft carrier from the former Soviet Union navy has been turned into a military theme park and will be stationed at Dapeng Bay in Shenzhen, south China' s Guangdong Province.

The 40,000-ton ship, known as the Minsk, first arrived at the Wenchong Shipyard in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, in November 1998 as scrap iron, the Shanghai-based Wenhuai Daily reported on May 8.

It is about triple the size of a standard football field, 18 stories high, and has more than 2,000 cabins, the paper said.

The carrier, which was poorly maintained by the Russian navy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, retired in 1993 and was initially sold to a South Korean businessman as scrap steel after key military components were removed, the paper said.

The Minsk was later resold to an undisclosed Chinese business.



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