 The shallow waters of the Northern Sea Route limited the draught to , but outside the arctic the cargo capacity of the ship could be increased by allowing the ice-strengthened parts of the hull to become submerged.The harsh operating conditions of the arctic seas place high requirements on the strength, reliability and redundancy of the propulsion machinery, especially for single-screw ships operating independently without icebreaker escort.For this reason the robust propulsion system had several innovative features and prototype arrangements to improve the ship's operational capability.