Hotel Kiev?

The Chinese are opening a 148 room luxury hotel in the refurbished Russian aircraft carrier Kiev.  Since 2004, the aircraft carrier has been part  of what is billed as “the world’s biggest military theme park” in Tianjin, a municipality close to Beijing.   The Chinese also own the Russian aircraft carrier Minsk, a sister vessel to the Kiev, which is the centerpiece of Minsk World,  a military theme park in Shenzhen, China.  The Chinese military owns a third Russian carrier, the Varyag, whose keel was laid in 1985 but which was never finished.  The Chinese have been working to finish the ship as an aircraft carrier for roughly the last decade. The ship returned from a second round of sea trials in mid-December and is said to be near completion but is not yet capable of landing planes on its deck.

I am only beginning to appreciate just how versatile aircraft carriers can be. Aside from the launching and landing of aircraft, they make great basketball stadiums, as we have seen recently on the USS Carl Vincent. The British aircraft carrier Ark Royal just might be on its way to becoming a recreational dive site and reef. (The HMS Hermes, launched in 1919, the first ship designed and constructed to be an aircraft carrier, is already a popular dive site where the Japanese sank her near Batticaloa Sri Lanka in 1942.  See HMS Hermes 2011)

Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing along the article about the Ark Royal.