Taymyr (Russian: Таймыр) is a shallow-draft nuclear-powered icebreaker, and the first of two similar vessels. She was built in 1989 for the Soviet Union in Finland, at the Helsinki New Shipyard by Wärtsilä, by order of the Murmansk Shipping Company.
The Taymyr was delivered to Russia for the installation of the reactor system. It has a nuclear-turbo-electric reactor giving up to 50,000 hp. This shallow-draft icebreaker is used mainly for clearing rivers, including their mouths and estuaries of ice and opening channels in order to make winter navigation possible.
This icebreaker and its sister ship Vaygach belong to a type known as Taymyr-class River Icebreakers.
In the spring of 2011 a minor release of radioactivity was detected in the ships reactor ventilation system - the second such leak on board the vessel in as many years. The Taymyr returned to Murmansk under diesel power for repair. By then 6,000 litres of coolant had leaked from its nuclear reactor.