Photos of Miass River Motor Ship Rides in Chelyabinsk
Chelyabinsk's Miass River once featured motor ship excursions that ran from the pool on Rossiyskaya Street to the circus in the 1980s.
Nov 9, 2025 1
In the 1970s, the motor ship Elektrometallurg sailed towards the circus, passing Naberezhnaya and Kalinina streets.
Source:
Yevgeny Tkachenko
The Miass River is undoubtedly an ornament of Chelyabinsk. Many people enjoy walking along the water, boating and riding catamarans. In the past, city residents had another entertainment — motor ship rides. Its route ran from the pool on Rossiyskaya Street to the circus.
The motor ship «Elektrometallurg» was described to 74.RU journalists by veteran rower 58-year-old Anatoly Metelichin. He himself has traveled the entire Miass in kayaks and canoes since he was 9 years old.
«I remember that motor ship well. Back then, in the 80s, a child»s ticket cost 10 kopecks,« recalled Anatoly. »In winter, it was pulled ashore so it wouldn«t be crushed by ice. It had an engine from a KamAZ, and the captain was always overhauling and repairing it. And this ship constantly ran aground, often near Zayachy Island.»
Let«s look at photos of that part of the Miass River where the little ship sailed.
A panorama shows the construction of the ChGRES (Chelyabinsk State District Power Station) residential microdistrict on the Miass River bank in the early 1930s.
Source:
State Archive of Chelyabinsk Region
A wooden bridge crosses the Miass River near the ChEMK (Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant) in 1936.
Source:
State Archive of Chelyabinsk Region
An entertainment island on the Miass River appears in a numbered postcard from Chelyabinsk, published by photographer V.G. Polovnikov between 1909 and 1917.
Source:
State Archive of Chelyabinsk Region
A 1972 panorama captures Naberezhnaya Street from the opposite bank of the Miass River.
Source:
State Archive of Chelyabinsk Region
A reinforced concrete bridge spans the Miass River on Pobedy Prospekt in 1990, later renamed Leningradsky Bridge.
Source:
State Archive of Chelyabinsk Region
ChEMK athletes practice in kayaks on the Miass River before the Spring Oars of Miass city competition in 1969.
Source:
State Archive of Chelyabinsk Region
Kayakers train on the Miass River in a late 1960s photograph titled «Envy».
Source:
State Archive of Chelyabinsk Region
Want to learn more unusual facts about Chelyabinsk — read our article about how on the site of Komsomolsky Prospekt there used to be an airstrip.
