britannia yacht now

Inside ‘Britannia,’ Queen Elizabeth II’s Floating Palace

The Royal Yacht, according to Her Majesty, was “the one place where I can truly relax.”

But Britannia was far more than a posh royal cruise liner. She was a showcase for cutting-edge naval engineering and the first royal yacht that could do double duty as a floating hospital in wartime, if necessary. In 1986, for instance, she rescued more than 1,000 refugees from South Yemen. Over the course of her 44 years in service, Britannia facilitated 968 official visits and traveled over one million nautical miles.

She was also, of course, a time capsule of the best British design of the time, in terms of both technological prowess and decoration. Read on for more about the ship’s history, and where the Royal Yacht Britannia is now (hint: You can visit !).

What’s the backstory of Britannia ?

This history of royal liners goes back centuries. In fact, Britannia was the 83rd royal yacht; the first, HMY Mary, was constructed in 1660 by the Dutch East India Company and given as a gift to Charles II. Britannia ’s predecessor, Victoria & Albert III, was completed in 1901 and used by Edward II up through George VI, but was decommissioned in 1939 and eventually broken up as scrap. A new yacht was commissioned on February 4, 1952, in an effort to help King George VI’s health, according to the Royal Yacht Britannia museum, but the king died just two days later. The task to oversee the construction of the new yacht, then, fell on the young Queen Elizabeth II.

Who Built the Royal Yacht Britannia ?

Britannia was designed by John Brown & Co., the same marine engineering firm that built the RMS Lusitania and the Queen Mary. Construction on Britannia began in June 1952, and she was launched in a ceremony on April 16, 1953. The young queen didn’t reveal the name of the liner until her televised address in which she proudly stated before roaring crowds, “I name this ship Britannia .” Notably, a bottle of wine as opposed to the more traditional Champagne, was smashed across the ship’s bow during the christening—Champagne would have been much too ostentatious amid postwar austerity.

Who designed the Royal Yacht Britannia ’s interiors?

According to a technical paper presented to the Institution of Naval Architects in the spring of 1954, the royal and state apartments were to be on par with those of a first-class ocean liner. “The suitability of the decorative design and the furnishing of the Royal and State apartments has, of course, been very important,” the paper noted.

At first, Patrick McBride of the Glasgow, Scotland–based firm, McInnes Gardner & Partners, was selected to design the interiors, but the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh rejected those plans, deeming them too lavish, according to the Royal Yacht Britannia museum. Sir Hugh Casson, the director of architecture at the 1951 Festival of Britain, was the perfect candidate, with his modern eye and lack of ostentation. The design, the architect later wrote in his diary, “was really running a lawn mower over the Louis XVIl adornments. I was going to concentrate on one-color carpet throughout, which was sort of lilac/gray, and all the walls would be white. The only enrichments would be a bit of gilding in grand places.”

Working with Casson, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were highly involved, giving input for everything ranging from the furniture (much of it salvaged from the vessel’s predecessor, Victoria & Albert III , as another way to appear thrifty) to the ship’s blue exterior paint, inspired by the Duke of Edinburgh’s racing yacht, Bluebottle. Apartments featured a design like an elegant-yet-muted English country house, filled with floral sofas and antiques. The state drawing room could accommodate up to 250 guests. The Queen’s favorite room was the sun lounge, with its warm teak walls and rattan furnishings, and views across the veranda deck.

“I suppose Britannia was rather special as far as we were concerned because we were involved from the very beginning in organizing the design and furnishing and equipping and hanging the pictures and everything else,” Prince Philip said in a 1995 documentary film about the yacht. “For us it was rather special because all the other places we live in have been built by our predecessors. They started building Windsor 1,000 years ago, and they built Balmoral 100 years ago, and they built Sandringham 70 or 90 years ago. So we, in a sense, had our own.”

So successful was the partnership that Casson would go on to become a dear friend of the royal family and design interiors for Buckingham Palace, Balmoral , and Windsor Castle

Britannia was also a second home for the royal children. Each was given a member of the crew or “sea daddy” to look after them. “We found as children that there was so much to do, we expended so much energy that we couldn’t describe our time on the yacht as a rest,” Princess Anne said. Milk was delivered fresh from a farmer each day for the royal children, according to letters from the ship’s Acting Captain J. S. Dalglish. Later, the yacht would become the venue for numerous royal honeymoons and vacations, including Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s infamous 1981 Mediterranean cruise.

Where is the Royal Yacht Britannia Now?

As documented in season 5 of The Crown , the Royal Yacht was decommissioned on December 11, 1997, at a ceremony in Portsmouth, U.K., after nearly half a century in service and having traveled more than one million nautical miles. In addition to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward all attended the ceremony. As the British ensign was lowered to the tune of a navy band, Her Majesty was photographed blinking back tears .

Britannia was retired to Port of Leith in Edinburgh. Today, as one of the most popular tourist sites in the U.K., she serves as a museum and receives some 350,000 visitors per year who can tour the State dining room, the Queen’s bedroom, and sun lounge, as well as view the engine room and crew’s cabins. Visitors can even have tea and scones on the royal deck. The majority of the items on display are original to the yacht and are on loan from the Royal Collection.

In a bizarre 21st-century twist, former British prime minister Boris Johnson announced plans to build a Britannia successor, a £250 million yet-to-be-named, taxpayer-funded superyacht to operate as a “floating embassy.” The new British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, recently torpedoed those plans in favor of building a surveillance ship.

Anna Fixsen, Deputy Digital Editor at ELLE DECOR, focuses on how to share the best of the design world through in-depth reportage and online storytelling. Prior to joining the staff, she has held positions at Architectural Digest, Metropolis, and Architectural Record magazines. elledecor.com 

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Queen Elizabeth Cried When The Royal Yacht Britannia Was Decommissioned In 1997

The floating palace served the royal family for 44 years.

The Crown Season 5 kicks off with a flashback of a young Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland for the launch of the Royal Yacht Britannia , just as both she and the vessel were about to venture into uncharted waters. In an obvious metaphor, the United Kingdom’s newly crowned queen expressed her hope that the Britannia would be “dependable and constant, capable of weathering any storm.” As viewers now know, the late British monarch went on to enjoy a historic reign prior to her death on Sept. 8, 2022. As for whether the Royal Yacht had as impressive of a run, here’s everything to know about Britannia’s current whereabouts and sailing status.

The new royal yacht, which was commissioned just two days before King George VI died in February 1952, was designed to travel the globe and double as a wartime hospital ship. In light of the King’s declining health before his death, it was also intended to be a cruising convalescent residence for the ailing royal. As portrayed in the Netflix series, the Britannia launched from a Clydebank, Scotland shipyard in April 1953.

For the next 44 years, the yacht would serve as a royal residence for Queen Elizabeth, who welcomed aboard such world leaders as Sir Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, and Rajiv Gandhi, among others, for various state dinners. Meanwhile, other members of the Royal Family over the years used Britannia for such purposes as family holidays and honeymoons. Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones were the first newlyweds to honeymoon on the yacht in 1960, and Prince Charles and Princess Diana later famously spent their 1981 honeymoon on a Mediterranean cruise aboard the yacht. According to Town & Country , the crew managed to duck the press so efficiently that the Britannia earned the nickname “the ghost ship.”

Outside of the vessel’s recreational uses, the Yacht also played a role in some major historic events. When a civil war broke out in South Yemen in January 1986, for example, the Britannia, as a non-combatant Royal Navy ship, was allowed to enter territorial waters to rescue trapped British nationals without inflaming the conflict.

After traveling more than one million nautical miles, former Prime Minister Tony Blair decommissioned the Britannia in 1997. The ship became the last of 83 Royal Yachts, a tradition dating back to Charles II’s reign in the 1660s. “Looking back over forty-four years we can all reflect with pride and gratitude upon this great ship which has served the country, the Royal Navy and my family with such distinction,” said the Queen, who was photographed publicly shedding tears at the ceremony. All of the ship’s clocks remain stopped at 3:01, the exact time that she disembarked for the last time.

Now, the Britannia is located in Edinburgh and serves as a tourist attraction and exclusive events venue. Visitors can explore each of the five decks of Queen Elizabeth’s “floating palace” during hours that it’s open to the public. Meanwhile, the yacht is also available for private tours and exclusive use, as it is available to rent for birthdays, anniversaries, corporate events, etc. For the first time, Britannia will also host a “Royal New Year” party for ticketholders to ring in 2023 aboard the historic yacht.

Photos show what it's like onboard the Royal Yacht Britannia, the queen's 'floating palace' that she took on lavish vacations

• The Royal Yacht Britannia was the royal family's private yacht from 1953 to 1997.
• It's five stories tall, had more than 240 staff, and was known as the queen's "floating palace."
• Britannia is now anchored in Leith, Scotland, and reopens as a tourist attraction on May 12.

For 44 years, the Royal Yacht Britannia carried the queen and members of the royal family around the world.

Source: Royal Yacht Britannia

Built in 1953, it logged more than 1 million miles and became known as the queen's "floating palace."

The five-story ship was part royal residence and part Royal Navy ship, with a full-time staff of more than 240 royal yachtsmen and officers.

The queen traveled on the ship for tours abroad, during which she would meet with dignitaries both on land and onboard.

She also used it for vacations like the royal family's annual summer cruise to the Western Isles of Scotland.

The queen once said that "Britannia is the one place where I can truly relax."

Four royal couples used the ship for their honeymoons, including Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981.

In 1997, the Labour government decommissioned the ship, citing costs as a primary reason. The Britannia cost about £11 million to run each year, Reuters reported.

Source: Royal Yacht Britannia , Reuters

While the queen has yet to build a new yacht, that wasn't the end of the Royal Yacht Britannia.

One year later, it opened as a public museum in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland.

The ship is set to reopen on May 12, almost six months after it closed in November due to the pandemic.

Source: Royal Yacht Britannia , BBC

Visitors will be able to step into spaces like the teak-lined sun lounge, the queen's favorite room, where she took her breakfast and afternoon tea.

The queen's bedroom, featuring a vanity table, writing desk, and twin bed, is also on display. The queen and Prince Philip slept separately while onboard the Britannia.

The largest room on the ship is the state dining room, where the queen entertained dignitaries like Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher. The room could fit 56 guests.

Nearby is the state drawing room, which served as a place for the royal family to relax as well as a reception area for guests.

Toward the front of the ship are rooms where the staff lived and operated, like the 24-hour laundry room. Here, yachtsmen and officers would change outfits up to six times per day.

The former royal yachtsmen, known as "yotties," now reunite annually to help maintain the ship.

The clocks on the Royal Yacht Britannia don't get touched. They are permanently stopped at 3:01 p.m., the time when the queen stepped off the ship for the last time.

Prince Philip once said that the ship occupies a unique place in royal history. "Almost every previous sovereign has been responsible for building a church, a castle, a palace, or just a house," he said, according to the Royal Yacht Britannia Trust. "The only comparable structure in the present reign is Britannia."

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King Charles III makes a poignant return to the Royal Yacht Britannia – his mother’s beloved home from home

By Stephanie Bridger-Linning

King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) with Princess Diana on the Royal Yacht Britannia at the start of their honeymoon cruise

King Charles III yesterday made a poignant return to the Royal Yacht Britannia. A ‘home from home’ for Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Edinburgh and their four children, the Royal Yacht Britannia held an important place in the lives of the Royal Family for more than four decades until it was decommissioned in 1997.

Some expected Prince Harry to be among the congregation when close friend Jack Mann wed in Sussex

Family holidays, honeymoon and precious private time – the Royal Yacht Britannia brought so much to the Windsors. ‘This was the place out of the public eye, they could relax and be themselves. On board Britannia that was their family time and it was our job to make their stay comfortable,’ one former crew member recalled yesterday.

Members of the Royal Yacht Britannia make a toast with King Charles III during a tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia

By Harriet Johnston

By Isaac Bickerstaff

Boarding the decommissioned yacht, King Charles no doubt would have been transported back through the decades to the countless voyages he shared with his siblings, cousins and parents – and later his wife and their young sons. During the visit – part of a busy schedule of engagements for Holyrood Week – King Charles sipped rum with sailors, met former crew members and attended a reception in the State Dining Room. ‘To all the marvellous Yotties who keep it all going, you are all brilliant,’ he said, toasting the crew.

Also known as Royal Week, Holyrood Week is an opportunity for the King and Queen to celebrate Scottish culture

By Ollie Macnaughton

The history of royal yachts dates back to the reign of Charles II who, when he became King of England, Scotland and Ireland on the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, was gifted a yacht called the Mary by his Dutch allies. There have been a total of 82 royal yachts since. As well as providing monarchs and their families a place in which to relax, they have also been deployed on diplomatic missions; a role that was particularly important before royals were able to jet off on planes.

Prince Charles and Princess Anne with their nanny on board the Royal yacht, Britannia at Portsmouth

Although it was Queen Elizabeth II and her family who enjoyed the use of the Britannia, the vessel had been commissioned by her father, King George VI , as a replacement for the ageing Victoria and Albert which was decommissioned in 1939 having been constructed during the reign of Queen Victoria.

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By Natasha Leake

George VI, who reigned over Britain during the Second World War, took a practical approach when planning the new vessel, lest the nation should once again find itself in the throes of conflict, and ensured it could easily be turned into a hospital ship if needed. Sadly, the King died before construction was completed and it was his daughter and son-in-law who had the final say on its design.

The Queen and Prince Philip waving on board Royal Yacht Britannia during an official visit to Kuwait

The state room on the Royal Yacht Britannia

The Britannia set sail on her maiden voyage from Portsmouth to the Grand Harbour in Malta on 14 April 1952, carrying Princess Anne and her brother Prince Charles , who reunited with the then Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at the end of their Commonwealth tour. The late Queen first boarded the yacht at Tobruk in the country then known as the Kingdom of Libya in May 1954, and she famously became the first British monarch to visit Chicago in 1959 when the yacht docked in the city.

King George V’s grandson Prince Michael of Kent is married to the glamazon and author Princess Michael of Kent

It became integral to royal life. As a young boy, Prince Charles is said to have stolen pastries from the kitchen of the yacht, and was captured on film playing on the decks and swooping down a makeshift slide. Sir Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela were among those who dined in the opulent State Dining Room, while Prince Charles and Princess Diana honeymooned on board. It was also the location of fun-filled family holidays, with private home videos and photos shared from the royal archives over the years revealing how the late Queen relaxed on deck as the family whizzed down waterslides.

Season 5 of The Crown featured the Britannia towards the end of her seaworthy days. The series depicts Queen Elizabeth II (played by Imelda Staunton) tries to strong-arm Prime Minister Sir John Major (Johnny Lee Miller) into footing the bill for a sizeable refurbishment, telling him: ‘From the design of the hull to the smallest piece of china, she is a floating, seagoing expression of me.’ The Duke of Edinburgh (Jonathan Pryce) also does his best to compel Sir John to take action.

The Royal Yacht Britannia in Hong Kong

Ultimately, however, it was decided (as in real life) that the ‘costs were too great’ and, in 1994, it was announced the Britannia would be decommissioned. Three years later, the vessel that had given the late Queen so many happy memories embarked on its final voyage – a farewell tour around the UK. On the day of decommissioning, the enormity of the occasion was clear for the world to see, for Her late Majesty was photographed wiping away a tear during the ceremony; a rare public display of emotion for the stoic sovereign.

Typically stylish, Kate Middleton opted for an '80s-inspired green blazer and white midi skirt for her first outing to Wimbledon this year

Since her retirement, Britannia has been moored in the Port of Leith in Edinburgh and has served as a tourist attraction. It marks the final chapter in a fascinating story of the beloved floating royal residence.

The Queen wiping a tear from her eye at the de-commissioning ceremony for The Royal Yacht Britannia

By Isaac Zamet

By Rebecca Cope

By Wesley Kerr OBE

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What to Know About the Royal Yacht Britannia Featured on 'The Crown' Season 5

The Royal Yacht Britannia served as the official royal yacht of the British monarchy for 44 years

The Crown is diving into royal events from the '90s in season 5 , and that includes the decommissioning of Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia, also known as the Royal Yacht Britannia.

In the first episode of the new season, Claire Foy ( who portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in seasons 1 and 2) reprises her role as the monarch as a flashback shows the yacht's official launch in April 1953.

At the time, the new yacht held special significance as it was launched by the Queen just before her own coronation in June 1953 .

Through the years, the vessel sailed over 1,000,000 nautical miles on 968 state visits with the royal family as they entertained prime ministers and presidents, per the Royal Yacht Britannia website. It also served as the venue for several royal honeymoons , including Princess Diana and Princes Charles in 1981 .

From when it was commissioned to where the Royal Yacht Britannia is now, here's everything to know about the royal yacht.

When was the Royal Yacht Britannia commissioned?

As shown on The Crown , Royal Yacht Britannia was officially launched on April 16, 1953 , at the shipyard of John Brown & Co. Ltd in Clydebank, Dunbartonshire, where Queen Elizabeth unveiled the yacht's official name.

Following Queen Elizabeth 's coronation on June 2, 1953, the Royal Yacht Britannia was commissioned into the Royal Navy on January 11, 1954, before sailing her first overseas port on April 22.

How big is the Royal Yacht Britannia?

The Royal Yacht Britannia is about 412 feet long , with a beam width of 55 feet and five decks , and weighs over 4,000 tons.

Who used the Royal Yacht Britannia?

The yacht was described as the royal family's "floating residence" during its 44 years of service. As it was used to host "magnificent state receptions and banquets, and guests ," numerous world leaders boarded the yacht over the years, including Sir Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan and Rajiv Gandhi.

Per the Royal Yacht Britannia website, the yacht also " allowed the Royal Family some rare privacy away from their public duties and was famously described by HM Queen Elizabeth II as 'the one place I can truly relax.' "

Furthermore, the Royal Yacht Britannia was the venue of four royal honeymoons : Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, and Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. All four royal marriages ended in divorce, which Queen Elizabeth famously reflected on in her 1992 speech where she referred to the past year as her "annus horribilis ," or horrible year.

When was the Royal Yacht Britannia decommissioned?

The yacht's retirement was announced in 1994 as a result of the substantial costs needed to repair the ship. It was estimated that the cost would £17 million, which would only prolong the yacht for another five years.

On December 11, 1997, the Royal Yacht Britannia was decommissioned during an official ceremony that was attended by most of the senior members of the royal family. It was been reported that Queen Elizabeth was seen uncharacteristically shedding a tear during the decommissioning.

"Looking back over 44 years we can all reflect with pride and gratitude upon this great ship which has served the country, the Royal Navy and my family with such distinction," the Queen said at the time .

Where is the Royal Yacht Britannia now?

Listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, people can now visit the Royal Yacht Britannia at Port of Leith in Edinburgh, Scotland. Visitors are able to see various parts of the yacht including Britannia's five decks, the state apartments, as well as the Sun Lounge, which was the Queen's favorite room in which to have her afternoon tea.

Does the Royal Yacht Britannia have a successor?

Plans for a successor to the Royal Yacht Britannia first began in 2019 when it was reported that the late Sir Donald Gosling had donated £50 million to pay for the construction . In 2021, the yacht was commissioned by Boris Johnson to host trade fairs and diplomatic events and it was expected to go into service in 2024 or 2025.

However, in November 2022, it was reported by BBC that plans for the yacht were being scrapped as the government "searches for spending cuts." The new yacht was estimated to cost up to £250 million.

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Cruise line P&O UK (P&O Cruises)

• Bridgetown (Barbados)
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Britannia current position

Britannia current location is at Caribbean Sea (coordinates 12.08738 N / -61.81607 W) cruising at speed of 11.7 kn (22 km/h | 13 mph) en route to Castries. The AIS position was reported 14 minutes ago.

Current itinerary of Britannia

Britannia current cruise is 14 days, round-trip Caribbean . The itinerary starts on 08 Mar, 2024 and ends on 22 Mar, 2024 .

Specifications of Britannia

•   Itineraries
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Britannia Itineraries

Britannia review, review of britannia.

The 2015-built MV Britannia cruise ship is the largest vessel in the P&O UK's fleet. From this Royal-class are also the Princess Cruises liners Royal Princess (2013), Regal Princess (2014), Majestic Princess (2017), Sky Princess (2019), Enchanted Princess (2021) and Discovery Princess (2022). These are the ever biggest cruise vessels constructed by Fincantieri (Italy).

The vessel (IMO number 9614036) is currently UK- flagged (MMSI 235106595) and registered in Southampton .

History - construction and ownership

P&O Cruises is a subsidiary company and two brands owned by Carnival Corporation - P&O UK and P&O Australia. In 2000, P&O Cruises became subsidiary of P&O Princess Cruises, which merged with Carnival Corporation in 2003. P and O is the world's oldest cruise company, starting passenger shipping operations in 1822 on the routes connecting England with Iberia.

The 3700-passenger ship Britannia is the biggest ever cruise liner built especially for the British source market. The £500 million new-build is a result of four years of planning. P&O Britannia is 25,000 tons heavier than Azura and Ventura sister ships (previously the largest vessels in the P&O fleet). The Britannia ship alone boosts the capacity of the P and O line by almost a quarter – 24%. Britannia impresses with her Union Jack livery and offers British-style cruising with modern look and feel. Her homeport is Southampton .

Britannia has the most popular features of the P&O fleet, such as The Crow's Nest Bar, Atul Kochar's Sindhu restaurant, Olly Smith's The Glass House, as well as brand new amenities. P&O says that Britannia cruise ship engine power output (MAN diesel engines) is equivalent to 70 Challenger tanks’ power or 86 supercars Bugatti Veyron. Britannia cruise ship is also the greenest yet and designed to deliver greater levels of environmental and operational efficiency. The new form of the hull is expected to reduce fuel consumption by approx 20%. Along with the hull design, P and O changed the hull art as well – with the Union Jack flag 94 m / 308 ft long.

The Britannia ship is the eighth vessel to join P&O UK's fleet and named "to resonate with the forward-looking mood in Britain". Britannia is considered to be the most fitting name because of its famous long heritage, so suitable for the newest P&O addition – the favourite cruise line of Britain. Apparently, HM The Queen gave her permission to P&O use the name.

Two ships connected to the company have been previously named "Britannia". The first one entered service for General Steam Navigation Company in 1835. The second one, together with three other boats, was ordered to mark Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee (50th anniversary of her accession to the throne) and entered service in 1887. The "Golden Jubilee ship" had passenger capacity 410 (160 second-class plus 250 first-class) and cargo capacity 4000 tons. In 1888, on this Britannia sailed (to Bombay India ) Winston Churchill, with his hussar regiment, and then fought on India's North-West Frontier (present-day Pakistan's KPK-Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province/occupied by the British between 1849-1947 via the East India Company).

Royal Yacht Britannia was the vessel decommissioned in 1997 by John Major government, but the name has been associated with P&O for a long time. In June 2013 a management shake-up at Carnival UK operations later saw the exit of Carol Marlow- the former managing director, and Peter Shanks – ex-boss of Cunard brand. Britannia is the first vessel for P&O Cruises since then. These departures were linked to boosting younger cruisers’ proportion at the UK arm of Carnival Cruises. Everyone who believes in the growth of the cruise industry now expects the new P and O cruise ship Britannia to mark a new era of success.

Her Majesty The Queen (1926-2022) was the royal godmother. She named the ship on March 10th, 2015, at Southampton's Ocean Terminal. HM The Queen was accompanied by Prince Philip and The Duke of Edinburgh. After the royal words "May God bless her and all who sail in her", The Queen pressed the button that released a Nebuchadnezzar wine (a giant bottle of sparkling wine, the equivalent of 20 regular bottles) to be smashed against the hull. This most special event was also marked by live band music performances – Her Majesty's Royal Marines band, and the Irish Guards’ Regimental Band. Also present at the naming ceremony were the Carnival Corporation's front men Micky Arison (chairman) and Arnold Donald (CEO), and also David Dingle (chairman of Carnival UK).

Decks and Cabins

MS Britannia staterooms (a total of 1837 total, in 35 grades) include 64x Suites, 1298x Balconies, 448x Inside and 27x Studios (single-occupancy cabins). The ship has no Oceanview cabins. Most staterooms are Balcony (sized 175-290 ft2). Cabin balconies are rather small (sized 35 ft2 / 3 m2). The largest accommodations are the Owner's Suites (470 ft2/44 m2, with terrace sized 210 ft2/20 m2).

The boat has 17 decks , of which 14 are passenger-accessible and 8 with cabins.

Shipboard dining options - Food and Drinks

The rise on the world stage of British cooking is reflected in Britannia's dining options. The Epicurean Restaurant specializes in fine dining and molecular gastronomy. It features both contemporary and traditional dishes. The Glass House is home to nearly 40 different wines from all around the world, including labels from Greece, Croatia, and Japan. Wine expert Olly Smith pairs wine with food from the menu, featuring dishes like a Wagyu burger, sea bass ceviche with lime, lobster buns, Morecombe Bay and Devon crab sliders. The first British ship to offer cooking lessons at sea, The Cookery Club provides guests an opportunity to hone their cooking techniques under the watchful eye of food experts and chefs. Aboard the Britannia, passengers can cook alongside baking queen Mary Berry and TV chef James Martin. Michelin-starred chef Atul Kochhar teaches guests how to make dishes from Sindhu - his signature restaurant. Celebrity chef Marco Pierre White also runs a class, demonstrating his famous dishes whilst passengers cook alongside him.

While P&O UK has already linked up with celebrity chefs for Cookery Club school, Britannia will also act as a backdrop to the first at sea celebrity-led TV cooking contest, Battlechefs, from April 4. On April 2, 2016, the ship will be the setting for another first as she will host live Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway from the top deck.

Follows the complete list of Britannia restaurants and food bars.

• The Limelight Club (supper club for specialty dining; offers live performances and the 3-course dinner menu)
• Meridian Restaurant (aft Dining Room; for Breakfast 7:30-9 am, and Lunch 12:15-1:45 pm/3-course menu; Afternoon Tea 4-4:45 pm.; club dinner dining at 6:30 or 9.30 pm)
• The Oriental Restaurant (aft MDR, with fixed seating dining at 6:30 and 8:30 pm)
• The Peninsular Restaurant (forward MDR, with fixed seating dining at 6:30 and 8:30 pm, open-seating breakfast and lunch; also serving Afternoon Tea 4-4:45 pm)
• Sindhu (Indian specialty restaurant, by A. Kochhar)
• Ocean Grill (specialty, by chef Marco Pierre White)
• The Glass House (steakhouse/seafood specialty restaurant and wine bar, by Olly Smith)
• Java Cafe (buffet-style restaurant)
• The Cookery Club (specialty restaurant and cooking club by James Martin)
• Fine Dining Restaurant (Epicurean Restaurant - specialty, dinner-only, by the Michelin star Marco Pierre White)
• Horizon Restaurant (Lido buffet; complimentary, self-service; with several food stations and floor-ceiling windows)
• Beach House (casual dining venue, dinner-only)
• Poolside drinks and fast-food bars – The Pizzeria, Lido Bar, Lido Grill, Riviera Bar, “Grab and Go”.

Shipboard entertainment options - Fun and Sport

MV Britannia ship design is a masterpiece created by Richmond International – London-based architects, who anticipate today's Britain tastes. They are well known for creating “flowing” coherent interiors but with each area having an individual identity. While the Britannia ship may be a large vessel, every inch of the interior was carefully considered as to become breathtaking and striking. MV Britannia was designed to make guests feel special, and all of her was planned with flair and imagination. The Britannia ship offers the very best of Britain's contemporary design and an unprecedented number of facilities for passengers.

The vessel provides the best classic features of Aurora and Oriana , and a wide choice of the contemporary variety of Azura and Ventura. 13 cafes and restaurants, 13 bars, 15 passenger decks, 4 swimming pools, 9 jacuzzis – what more of all these could a traveler wish for? Another good decision on a practical level is the greater number of single cabins - more than on any other ship. Additional amenities include Complimentary 24-hour Room-Service, Internet/WiFi access, supervised kids program, laundry/self-serve laundromats, nursery.

Follows the complete list of Britannia lounges, clubs and other entertainment venues for kids, teens, and adults.

• Britannia Atrium (3-decks central open floor area and social hub); Atrium Shops (Regalia - clothes, souvenirs, gifts; The Wardrobe - brand fashion, watches, bags, hats); Chic - fashion boutique; Emporium - candy shop; Eternity - jewelry, Essence - perfumes)
• Market Cafe (Atrium patisserie by Eric Lanlard), Blue Bar (Atrium piano bar), Sunset Bar
• Brodie’s Pub; The Studio (multi-purpose lounge); Marlow Suite (multifunction room, doubles as Card Room)
• Headliners Theatre (836-seat, 2-decks, featuring grand scale productions, live performances, game shows)
• The Crystal Room (Lounge and Bar; daily dance classes, grand evening balls)
• The Live Lounge (music-dedicated venue; disco at night)
• The Crow's Nest Lounge (dance floor, a stage for live music; with floor-ceiling windows for panoramic views; hosts art classes, quiz games, cooking demos during the day)
• Casino; Ivory Suite (vow renewal and wedding services)
• Photo Gallery and Shop; Art Gallery; The Library (with Internet computers)
• Terrace Pool (adults only area, served by Terrace Bar); Riviera Pool area; Aqua Pool and Bar; Coral Pool and Bar
• adults-only relaxation areas ("Retreat" /VIP Spa terrace with private cabanas, and "Serenity")
• Oasis Spa complex (Treatment Rooms, Steam Rooms, Thermal Suite, Thalassotherapy pool, Beauty Salon)
• Gymnasium (complimentary equipment, Fitness classes; Yoga and Pilates at surcharge)
• Childrens' Facilities (Kids Play Area, The Reef Kids Programming Rooms, Nursery)
• Promenade (Walking Lane and Jogging Track); Sports Court (basketball, volleyball, football, cricket, tennis); Table Tennis; four Golf Net cages.

Itineraries

P&O Britannia itinerary program is based on homeporting in Southampton England and Bridgetown Barbados . The roundtrips include Caribbean Islands (from Barbados), ex-Southampton voyages along the Atlantic Coast, Baltic, Mediterranean, Canary Islands, "mini-cruises" to Guernsey (Channel Islands), Transatlantic repositioning crossings.

Britannia returned to the UK/Southampton on March 25, 2016 (a year after the naming ceremony led by HM The Queen) being homeported in Barbados throughout winter 2015-2016. From the UK, the ship operated short-breaks to Northern Europe and longer cruises to the Mediterranean (during summer). For the Caribbean winter 2016-2017 season, the ship was homeported in Saint Lucia (Castries) .

On June 27, 2021, Britannia became P&O UK's first liner to restart operations (following the 15+ months pause due to the Coronavirus crisis) leaving roundtrip from Southampton on a 4-night "Short Break" ( cruise to nowhere ) in the English Channel/along Devon's coast.

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Britannia wiki.

MS Britannia is currently P&O UK's largest liner, as well as the ever-biggest built specifically for the UK market, Fleet's next largest vessels are  Azura and Ventura . The interior was designed by "Richmond International" - UK-based hotel design company. On February 22, 2015, the vessel was delivered at the Fincantieri Monfalcone shipyard . The ceremony was attended by Enrico Morando (Italy's Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance), Micky Arison (Carnival Corporation's Chairman), David Dingle (Carnival UK's Executive Chairman), David Noyes (P&O UK's CEO), Vincenzo Petrone (Fincantieri's Chairman) and Giuseppe Bono (Fincantieri's CEO).

P&O Britannia (Monfalcone shipyard/hull number 6231) is powered by Wartsila marine diesel engines (models 12V46F and 14V46F) generating total power output 62,4 MW.

First Mediterranean cruise (2015, March 14) was a 14-day roundtrip from Southampton to Gibraltar , Barcelona , Monaco , Civitavecchia-Rome , Corsica , Cartagena , Cadiz . First Transatlantic cruise crossing (2015, October 23) was a 14-day itinerary from Southampton to Bridgetown Barbados , visiting Madeira (Funchal), St Maarten, St Lucia, Dominica, Grenada. First Caribbean cruise (2015, November 6) was a 14-day roundtrip from Barbados to Aruba, Grand Cayman, Jamaica (Ocho Rios), BVI (Tortola), St Maarten, Antigua, Dominica, Grenada.

During winter, the ship cruises in the Caribbean on roundtrips from Barbados . The ship was homeported in Port Castries (St Lucia) during winter 2016-2017 season. It also offers fly-cruise deals from UK ( Southampton England ). P&O UK's "flight and cruise" deals to the Caribbean are inclusive of discounted airfare to and from Barbados or St Lucia.

P&O Britannia refurbishment 2019 review

The ship's first drydock refurbishment was in 2019 (October 8-22) at Damen Shipyard Brest (France) . During the drydock works were implemented the following changes:

• All interiors were refreshed (shipwide).
• ( Landing Deck 5 / midship Lobby) a permanent Art Gallery was added (adjacent to Blue Bar / Atrium bar)
• (deck 5 midship) The Atrium was redesigned with new color schemes and relaxed live entertainment (music, informal acts).
• (deck 5 midship) Market Cafe's menu upgraded with new gourmet sweets (recipes by Eric Lanlard / French patissier and celebrity chef)
• (deck 5 forward) To Oasis Spa and Salon (ship's wellness complex) were added two express pods for treatments - one for high-tech spa massages, the other for express skin treatments and LVL lash lifting.
• ( Tween Deck 6 ) The onboard shopping was upgraded with new luxury brands - Jo Malone London (candles), Tom Ford (designer fashion), Michael Kors (designer clothing and accessories, handbags, watches, shoes), Clifton (custom design clothing), Edinburgh Gin (alcohol).
• ( Main Deck 7 midship-starboard) Java Cafe (buffet restaurant's) menu was upgraded with alcoholic beverages.
• (deck 7 midship-aft-starboard) Photo Gallery upgraded with Dixons Electronics Hub selling gadgets (imaging, computing, audio) from premium brands like Amazon, Apple (electronics, computer software), Microsoft (software), Sony (electronics, gaming), Canon (imaging and optical products), Fitbit (trackers, wireless wearables), GoPro (action cameras), Bose (audio devices / headphones, speakers, wearables).

On MS Britannia, P&O also introduced a try-before-you-buy program with consultant-managing tasting tables in the ship's beauty and make-up areas.

Fun ship facts

During its first year of service (March 10, 2015 - March 25, 2016), the Britannia cruise ship:

• sailed more than 90000 nautical miles (103570 ml / 166680 km)
• hosted 730 theater shows
• served 94457 meals
• operated 43 itineraries (visiting 31 different countries and calling on 61 seaports).

During that time, the ship carried 116900+ passengers, who consumed ~375000 cocktail drinks, ~2,8 million cups of tea, 292000+ scones.

The vessel was laid down in 2011, its name was announced in 2013. P&O Britannia features a 308 ft / 94 m long Union Jack flag on hull's bow - world's biggest of its kind. The vessel is the first Monfalcone -made cruise ship with 2 funnels. The last ocean liner with 2 funnels (SS Eugenio C) was delivered by Monfalcone shipyard in 1966.

For the naming ceremony was used a nebuchadnezzar British Brut NV (from Winston Estate Winery, England's Sussex region). For the cruise ship's christening event, thousands of bottles "Rose Vintage 2011" and "Brut NV" were delivered.

MV Britannia ship's godmother was Her Majesty The Queen of Great Britain (Elizabeth II/1926-2022). On the naming ceremony, she was accompanied by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Philip. The event took place in Southampton on March 10, 2015. The list of other P and O cruise ships named by British Royals includes Oriana (April 6, 1995, by HM The Queen), Aurora (April 27, 2000, by HRH Princess Royal) and the ships Oceana and Adonia (both named on May 21, 2003, by HRH Princess Royal and her daughter Zara Phillips).

The cruise ship's namesakes are the ferries Spirit of Britain (P&O FERRIES) and Stena Britannica (STENA LINE).

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What Happened to the Royal Yacht Britannia?

By Elise Taylor

The Crown season five begins and ends with the same plot point: The Royal Yacht Britannia. The vessel serves as a—fairly obvious—metaphor in the first episode, where Imelda Staunton’s Queen Elizabeth describes it as “a floating, seagoing version of me.” The problem with her metaphorical marine self? It’s in desperate need of multi-million dollar repairs. 

She asks British prime minister John Major, played by Jonny Lee Miller, whether the government might be able to help foot the bill. He, in turn, asks if the royal family might front the cost, given the public pushback they both might receive if such a seemingly extravagant project was approved. In the final episode of the season (a note to the reader: spoilers will follow), Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth agree to decommission the yacht after Prince Charles’s trip to Hong Kong.

The Crown is known for taking much of its plot material from real-life events. In the case of the Royal Yacht Britannia, though—what really happened to the boat, and how much political controversy did it really cause?

To go back to the beginning, King George VI first commissioned the royal yacht that would become the Britannia in 1952. It was an exciting project, as the previous official boat had belonged to Queen Victoria, and was rarely used. (Queen Victoria, for one, did not like the water and never sailed.) Then, during the early 20th century, England was mostly at war, and making a massive, slow-sailing luxury ship would be a massive security risk in international waters. 

The Royal Yacht Britannia, George decided, should both be an extravagant vessel and a functional one, able to double as a hospital if times of war were to arise again. In 1953, the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth christened the ship with a bottle of wine, as champagne was still seen as too extravagant post-war. In 1954, she set sail for the first time.

The Royal Yacht fulfilled many functions, most of them leisurely. Over the years, the boat hosted four royal honeymoons, including that of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, as well as many family vacations. In 1969, after his investiture as the Prince of Wales, Charles hosted an intimate party on board to celebrate. (Newspapers at the time wrote that he danced with his dear friend Lucia Santa Cruz —the very person who eventually introduced him to Camilla Parker Bowles.)

It also served as a grandiose mode of transport for many royal visits. In 1959, for example, Britannia sailed to Chicago to celebrate the recently-opened St. Lawrence seaway in Canada, and President Eisenhower joined her on board. Twenty years later, she sailed to Abu Dhabi for her first official visit to the United Arab Emirates, where she held a grand dinner for Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.

And although Queen Elizabeth's reign was not during wartime, the royal yacht did execute a humanitarian mission, as King George VI had always planned for: In 1986, it sailed to Aden to evacuate over 1,000 refugees from the civil war in Yemen.

The New York Times once described the 412-foot Britannia as “an ordinary yacht what Buckingham Palace is to the house next door.” It wasn’t an exaggeration—Britannia was essentially a floating palace. It had a drawing room, a dining room, two sitting rooms, as well as galleys and cabins for all the officers. The stateroom interiors were just as ornate as any other royal estate, while the bedrooms—which all had their own bathrooms and dressing rooms—were designed to feel surprisingly personal. 

By Lilah Ramzi

“Within the royal apartments, however, the regal elegance gives way to the homey, patched elbow chic of an English country house, with flowered chintz slipcovers, family photographs, and rattan settees, interspersed with the occasional relic of Empire—shark's teeth from the Solomon Islands here, a golden urn commemorating Nelson's victory at Trafalgar there,” the New York Times found when it boarded the ship in 1976.

The cost of running Britannia was always an issue. Politicians raised questions about its financial value as far back as 1954, when two MPs lobbied for an investigation on why the yacht’s refurbishment would cost 5.8 million pounds, accusing the royal family of waste and extravagance. A government committee later dismissed the accusations. In 1994, the Conservative government ruled the yacht too costly to refurbish, when repairs came in at a whopping 17 million, but then briefly walked back on their decision a few years later. 

However, when Tony Blair’s Labour government won the election, and the new government once again declined to pay for Britannia. Britannia’s final journey was to far-flung Hong Kong in 1997, as Prince Charles turned over the British colony back to the Chinese at the end of Britain's 99-year lease. When they finally decommissioned the boat that summer, the queen cried—one of the few times she’s shown emotion in public. The boat had logged over one million nautical miles.

Today, Britannia sits permanently docked in Edinburgh. Visitors can take tours of its grand galleys, or even rent it out for events. Yet, despite its retirement, the concept of the royal yacht lives on: In 2021, Boris Johnson floated the idea of a new boat. However, a mere eight days ago, Rishi Sunak has scrapped the project—showing that, even now, the concept remains a controversial one.

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The Royal Yacht Britannia Has a Fascinating History—Here's Everything You Should Know

It doesn't get more majestic than Queen Elizabeth II's yacht.

Seventy years ago, the Britannia began its journey as the royal yacht for Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family of the United Kingdom. Over the next 44 years she’d travel more than a million nautical miles and, in all her glamour and old world elegance, served as a residence that welcomed state visits from all over the world and family holidays alike. Then and now, she was and is a majestic symbol of the British Commonwealth and the reign of Queen Elizabeth II .

“Britannia is special for a number of reasons,” Prince Phillip once said. “Almost every previous sovereign has been responsible for building a church, a castle, a palace or just a house. The only comparable structure in the present reign is Britannia. As such she is a splendid example of contemporary British design and technology.”

Although she retired from service in 1997, today the Britannia, one of many of the world's grandest yachts , is docked in Edinburgh, where she is open as a visitors’ attraction and host of private events. Below we give you all the Royal Yacht Britannia facts you might want to know, from who owns the yacht now to why she was decommissioned to how fast she is to how to get tickets to visit. Britannia was, after all, the one place the queen said she could “truly relax,” so why not see why for yourself?

Royal Yacht Britania Facts and History

On February 4, 1952, John Brown & Co shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland, received the order from the Admiralty to build a new Royal Yacht to travel the globe and double as a hospital ship in times of war, according to the royal yacht's website . King George VI passed away two days after, sadly, and so on April 16, 1953, the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II announced the yacht’s new name as the ship was revealed.

"I name this ship Britannia,” she said. “I wish success to her and all who sail in her." Britannia was commissioned into the Royal Navy in January 1954 and by April of that year sailed into her first overseas port: Grand Harbour, Malta.

The queen and The Duke of Edinburgh worked with interior designer Sir Hugh Casson for the ship to serve as both a functional Royal Navy vessel and an elegant royal residence. Queen Elizabeth II selected deep blue for Britannia’s hull, instead of the more traditional black. Its Naval crew included 220 Yachtsmen, 20 officers, and three season officers—plus a Royal Marines Band of 26 men during Royal Tours.

All of them might have had to change uniform up to six times a day, so the laundry service on board worked nonstop. The yacht also engaged in British overseas trade missions known as Sea Days and made an estimated £3 billion for the Exchequer between 1991 and 1995 alone.

The ship’s wheel was taken from King Edward VII’s racing yacht, also named Britannia, according to Boat International , and the 126-meter ship could reach speeds of 22.75 knots, or a seagoing cruising speed of 21 knots, according to Super Yacht Times . Other fun facts: The yacht could produce her own fresh water from sea water, and shouting was forbidden aboard to preserve tranquility, favoring hand signals for Naval orders instead.

Over the next 44 years, the Britannia would sail the equivalent of once around the world for each year, in total visiting 600 ports in 135 countries. Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones were the first of four couples to honeymoon on the ship in 1960, gifting them all privacy to sail to secluded locations. Prince Charles and Princess Diana followed in 1981 on the Mediterranean as well as Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips before them in 1973 in the Caribbean and Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson in 1986 in the Azores.

For family vacations aboard the ship, games, treasure hunts, plays, and picnics were organized, and on warm days the children could play in an inflatable paddling pool on the Verandah Deck.

In the Sun Lounge, the queen especially enjoyed taking breakfast and afternoon tea with views through large picture windows, a space you can see replicated in the TV show The Crown. Although no filming took place on board the Britannia for the show, researchers ensured scenes aboard it were accurate. In the queen’s bedroom, the resemblance is seen down to the decorative wall light fittings and embroidered silk panel above her bed that had been specially commissioned.

In 1997, the ship was decommissioned after the government decided the costs to refit it would be too great. On its final day in her service that followed a farewell tour around the U.K., the queen openly wept as the Band of HM Royal Marines played "Highland Cathedral."

"Looking back over 44 years we can all reflect with pride and gratitude upon this great ship which has served the country, the Royal Navy and my family with such distinction," Queen Elizabeth II said. All clocks on the ship stopped at 15:01, the exact time the Queen disembarked from the yacht for the final time, and they would remain at that time until the present.

How to Tour the Royal Yacht Britania

Today the yacht is owned by Royal Yacht Britannia Trus t, and all revenue it generates goes to the yacht’s maintenance and preservation. Ticketed entry allows you to step into state rooms like the Sun Lounge, the State Dining Room and State Drawing Room, in addition to the working side of the ship in the Crew’s Quarters, Laundry and gleaming Engine Room. Along the way you will see original artifacts from the shop—95 percent of which is on loan from The Royal Collection.

How to Visit the Royal Britania

You can visit the Britannia any day of the year on Edinburgh’s waterfront. Hours vary by season, and you can find them listed and purchase tickets on the yacht’s website . Private tours are also available, and you can visit the Royal Deck Tearoom, where the Royal Family hosted cocktail parties and receptions, for drinks, meals and scones. Additionally, the Britannia hosts special ticketed events for New Year’s and other occasions, and event spaces can be booked as well.

While you are in Edinburgh, you can also stay on the Fingal , a neighboring yacht-turned-floating-hotel, which is a seven-minute walk from the Britannia, and dine at its Lighthouse Restaurant & Bar, which serves breakfast, afternoon tea, dinner, and cocktails.

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The Royal Yacht Britannia : A History of Queen Elizabeth II’s Favorite Palace

By Lisa Liebman

The christening of The Royal Yacht Britannia serves as a cheeky season opener to  The Crown . Black-and-white Pathé News–style footage shows a soon-to-be-crowned Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy) cheered on by shipbuilders as she launches her new 412-foot yacht. “I hope that this brand-new vessel, like your brand-new queen, will prove to be dependable and constant. Capable of weathering any storm,” she says about the royal replacement for the  Victoria and Albert III . By the series’ season finale, set 44 years later, both the sovereign and the floating palace she christened  Britannia will have hit rough seas—the cost of repairing the creaky old vessel and the modern role of the monarchy both in question. Ultimately, the yacht that undertook 968 official voyages all over the world, hosting dignitaries—including 13 US presidents—at receptions and banquets, was dry-docked near Edinburgh, Scotland, where it continues to be a popular tourist attraction. Here are some of the most buoyant facts about the palace the Queen famously said was “the one place where I can truly relax.”

The sun room on the Royal Yacht Britannia as photographed in 1981. 

In a nod to the country’s post-war austerity, Elizabeth scaled back the design of the ship that her father, King George VI, had commissioned just two days before he died. Rather than following the opulent plan laid out by the Scottish firm McInnes Gardner & Partners, she opted for the understated elegance envisioned by architect Sir Hugh Casson, who described “running a lawn mower over the Louis XVIl adornments” in favor of simple white walls, lilac-gray carpeting, and “a bit of gilding in grand places.” Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Phillip, were said to have personally chosen the furniture—much of it, including linens, recycled from the  Victoria and Albert —fabrics (florals, chintz, toile), and paintings. 

Prince Charles and Princess Diana on board the Royal Yacht Britannia as they prepare to depart on their honeymoon cruise in 1981.

As a former Royal Navy Commander, Prince Phillip also saw to the ship’s technical details, and his Bluebottle racing yacht inspired the Britannia ’s navy-hued hull. Outer decks were made of two-inch Burmese teak. The steering wheel was reclaimed from Britannia ’s namesake, King Edward VII’s 1893 racing yacht; a wheelhouse wheel came from George V’s racing yacht; and a gold-and-white binnacle (housing the ship’s compass) was salvaged from King George III’s yacht and installed on the Veranda deck. Fittings from former royal ships were also reused. 

The drawing room on the Royal Yacht Britannia as photographed in 1978. 

The 4,000-ton yacht had a crew of 220 Royal Yachtsmen who lived on board, about 45 household staff, and occasionally a 26-member Royal Marine embarked to entertain dignitaries. The monarch often welcomed guests from the ship’s grand staircase. (Stairs leading from the Veranda to the Royal deck were sometimes transformed into a water slide for the kids.)  Britannia ’s apartments were designed like those of a first-class ocean liner. A 56-seat state dining room, where many of the gifts given to the monarch (a wood-carved shark from Pitcairn Island, a bejeweled gold statue from Bangkok) were displayed, was the scene of formal dinners with guests such as Sir Winston Churchill, Frank Sinatra, Nelson Mandela, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. More intimate gatherings were held in the Queen’s official reception room, a smaller state drawing room with floral upholstered pieces, simple wood tables, an electric fireplace, and a Welmar baby grand piano bolted to the deck—played by everyone from Sir Noël Coward to Princesses Diana and Margaret. The teak-clad sun lounge, with rattan furniture and a toile loveseat, was Elizabeth’s favorite place—where she had her breakfast, afternoon tea, and also enjoyed her favorite Dubonnet and gin cocktails.

The Queen’s sitting room on the Royal Yacht Britannia as photographed in 1981. 

By Dana Thomas

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By María Noval-Quílez

A ship elevator reserved for royal use moved between the Upper and Shelter Decks. The latter is where four Royal Apartments (bedrooms), including the Queen and Prince Phillip’s connecting compartments, were located. Hers featured florals, his had red accents. Elizabeth’s understated Upper Deck private sitting room, done in pastels and neutrals, served as the office where she conducted state business. Phillip used his sitting room, with its wood desk facing a model of his first command, the HMS Magpie , as his study. Below deck there was a wine cellar, as well as a cargo hold that could carry a barge, speed- and sailboats, plus a royal Range Rover and Rolls-Royce. The yacht could also be converted into a hospital (though it never was).

The Queen shed a tear at the decommissioning ceremony for thye Royal Yacht Britannia.

As depicted in  The Crown, Britannia ’s final official trip was to Hong Kong in 1997, where Prince Charles attended the handover of the territory to China. By then, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration was complaining that the £11 million a year needed to keep the boat afloat couldn’t be justified. With Queen Elizabeth, Prince Phillip, and all of their children in attendance,  Britannia was decommissioned at a ceremony in Portsmouth, England on December 11, 1997, with the monarch seen wiping away a tear. The yacht, now docked in Leith, Scotland, is open to the public as a museum and events space. (Prior to their wedding, Princess Anne and Mark Phillips’s daughter Zara Phillips and her fiancé Mike Tindall had a celebration there.) Visitors will note that every clock on board reads 3:01, the exact time the Queen disembarked her beloved  Britannia for the final time on that December day.

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'The Crown' Raises Questions About Britannia — Where Is the Royal Yacht?

The Britannia was a grand ship that transported the British Royal Family overseas for decades. What happened to the yacht? Here's what we know.

Feb. 22 2023, Updated 10:41 a.m. ET

What happened to the royal family's yacht, Britannia?

The britannia required major maintenance and repairs over the years., where is the royal yacht britannia now.

The British Royal Family 's yacht, the Britannia , is believed to have traveled more than 1 million maritime miles during her 43 years of sailing. Much like its passengers, the Britannia was a regal vessel that carried the royal family overseas for important visits and vacations. However, the yacht also required expensive maintenance.

If you're curious about what became of the yacht after watching The Crown or due to your love for the royal family , look no further — we've done the digging for you.

Although The Crown is a dramatized retelling of the royal family's history, the yacht is very much real. The 412-foot vessel could hold more than 250 guests. The Britannia also hosted U.S. presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. In 1986, it even served as a shelter for over 1,000 refugees fleeing a civil war in Aden, Yemen .

The Britannia first set sail in 1954 from Portsmouth to Grand Harbor, accompanied by Prince Charles and Princess Anne. The boat was built by the Scottish shipbuilding firm John Brown & Company Ltd. in Clydebank, Dunbartonshire, and was launched by Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales on board the Royal Yacht Britannia in Gibraltar, at the start of their honeymoon cruise, August 1981. She is wearing a floral silk dress by Donald Campbell.

The Britannia was an aging vessel with nearly five decades worth of nautical mileage. It was in need of expensive repairs and stirred a small debate as to how it would be paid for. In Season 5 of The Crown , Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip are shown vacationing in Scotland aboard the royal yacht. They discussed restoration costs.

During this time, which was also an election year, there were conversations within the Conservative party about replacing the vessel, while the Labour party promised not to use taxpayers' money to renovate the ship within their first two years of government.

"The yacht last underwent a major refit in 1987. A further refit at an estimated cost of some £17 million would be necessary in 1996–1997 but would only prolong her life for a further five years," said Viscount Cranborne, House of Lords Hansard. "In view of her age, even after the refit, she would be difficult to maintain and expensive to run. It has therefore been decided to decommission 'Britannia' in 1997."

When the Labour party won the election in 1997, it was ultimately decided that the ship wouldn't be replaced.

"We made clear that we would not spend public money on a royal yacht, and I am keeping that promise," said George Robertson, Labour's Defence Secretary at the time. "We in the Ministry of Defence have to justify every penny of the taxpayers' money that we spend, and in this case, I could not do so."

The Britannia retired on Dec. 11, 1997. Today it sits at the Ocean Terminal, Leith, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Queen Elizabeth II was even reported to have wept during the decommissioning ceremony. The Britannia is open to the public and has more than 300,000 visitors each year to keep her company.

Living my best ‘The Crown’ life onboard the @britanniayacht . pic.twitter.com/ppO1GcyA7j — Morag (@MoragForbes) January 21, 2023

Those who are interested in getting a first-hand experience at what it was like to travel in luxury some decades ago can visit the Royal Yacht Britannia museum for a small fee. Entrance fees start at £18.50 (about $23) for adults and £9.25 (about $11) for children between the ages of 5 and 17. During the tour, you can expect to see the following:

• Britannia's five decks
• Visit the bridge
• Walk through the Queen's favorite room
• Tour the engine room
• Enjoy a light lunch in the Royal Deck Tea Room

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A New Royal Yacht Is Coming

• By Phil Draper
• January 7, 2022

There are yachts, and there are superyachts, but royal yachts tend to be something else again. The United Kingdom hasn’t had a royal yacht for almost 25 years, but the British government just announced its intention to replace Her Majesty’s Yacht Britannia .

No firm details have been released of what this replacement could be, but design proposals were recently invited. Time is of the essence, given that the official policy statement came with a proposed launch date just three years away.

The open brief suggests that what is needed now is less yacht, more national ship—a world-first build. Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he sees the vessel as more of a floating embassy to support royals and government ministers alike.

That concept is broadly familiar. During its 44-year service life as a ship of state, Britannia racked up more than 1 million nautical miles and 696 foreign visits. Every itinerary was about promoting the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, and trade promotion was always a part of the job description. For instance, Britannia made several trips to the United States, including both coasts and Chicago via the St. Lawrence Seaway. Various presidents and their wives were guests aboard, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

But what defines a royal yacht?

It’s not just about scale, although the eight-deck, all-steel Britannia was one of the biggest yachts in the world when it launched. It was built at Scotland’s John Brown and Co. of Clydebank, the same yard that built the ocean liners RMS Queen Elizabeth and RMS Queen Mary . Britannia entered service in January 1954, one year after Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Her late husband, Prince Philip, was a former naval officer and enthusiastically oversaw Britannia’s specification and construction.

The yacht, beyond its routine duties, could rapidly convert to a 200-bed hospital ship or an offshore refuge for the royal family in case of nuclear war. Britannia is 412 feet length overall, has a 55-foot beam and measures 5,862 gross tons. Thanks to two turbine sets producing up to 12,000 hp, Britannia was capable of a continuous 21 knots throughout its service years.

Those were the days when a yacht of that size was unusual: There are now almost 30 giga-yachts afloat with more gross tonnage than Britannia . Only a quarter of them have any obvious royal affiliations.

But in its day, Britannia was an operation to behold. The yacht was home to 21 officers and 256 sailors of the British Royal Navy and could host functions with 250 guests. The staterooms and staff quarters were aft, and the crew were forward. The yacht’s complement included a Royal Marines guard detachment in separate onboard barracks, a 26-strong military band, and a full general surgery team with an operating theater. The permanent noncommissioned crew were known affectionately as the “yotties.”

Britannia was where the most senior members of the royal family stayed when on suitable official visits. It was not where they would normally spend vacations, although Prince Charles and Princess Diana famously used Britannia for a honeymoon cruise in the Mediterranean. They had the yacht’s only double bed installed aboard.

As for Britannia’s successor, various sources have quoted ballpark figures for the build in the low hundreds of millions of dollars. The final specification will depend on how much space is practical for conference and entertainment areas, the number of guest staterooms, the crew complement, helicopter use, tenders, provisions, technology, and security. Johnson also says he wants the vessel to incorporate cutting-edge green technologies and showcase best practices with regard to sustainability.

The new yacht is expected to have a service life of at least 30 years. Given that trillions of dollars’ worth of trade deals were reportedly secured aboard Britannia , the cost for that lifespan is not expected to be a concern.

Construction could start as early as next year, following consultations with the royal family, the Royal Navy and various government departments. The vessel will officially be the responsibility of the Ministry of Defense and classified as if it were a warship.

Floating History

Now retired, royal yacht Britannia lies permanently in Edinburgh, Scotland. This vessel has been one of the Scottish capital’s most popular tourist draws for more than 25 years. It is open daily and sees more than 1,000 visitors a day. Guided tours take in all areas, including a view into the queen’s bedroom, private sitting rooms, state dining room and drawing rooms, sun lounge and veranda, bridge, crew decks, and engine room.

The First Royal Yacht

The wooden wheel aboard Britannia came from the only other royal yacht to bear the name, the much older 122-foot gaff-rigged cutter Britannia . Built for Prince Albert Edward, who later became King Edward VII, it was famously campaigned at big-boat

regattas by him and his son, King George V. The yacht launched in spring 1893 and was a near-sister to Valkyrie II , which unsuccessfully challenged the Nathanael Greene Herreshoff-built Vigilant for the America’s Cup that same year. Both Valkyrie II and Britannia

were designed by George Lennox Watson and built at the D&W Henderson Shipyard in Scotland. Following George V’s death and per his wishes, the vessel was stripped of its spars and fitting, and scuttled in deep water off England’s South Coast on July 10, 1936.

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The Old British Royal Yacht Britannia Is Now A Museum & You Can Visit In Edinburgh

The HMY Britannia was the Royal Yacht that traveled the world and today is a museum open to the public in Edinburgh.

• The HMY Britannia is an excellent museum ship in the UK, alongside other famous naval ships like the HMS Victory.
• The Britannia served as a royal residence for the British Monarchy and had a crew of volunteers from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines.
• Visitors can explore the Britannia in Edinburgh, learning about the Royal Family's accommodations and enjoying attractions like the Royal Sailing Exhibition.

The Royal Yacht Britannia (or Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia ) is one of the more unusual ship museums in the United Kingdom (the United States has its two equivalent preserved Presidential Yachts to explore). She serviced between 1954 and 1997 and is now a museum open to the public in Edinburgh, one of the most beautiful cities to explore in the UK.

The HMY Royal Yacht Britannia is one of the United Kingdom's number of excellent museum ships worth visiting, including the HMS Victory (the oldest naval ship still floating) .

What To Know Of The HMY Britannia - The Royal Floating Residence

The HMY Britannia is the old royal yacht of the British monarchy and was the 83rd vessel since King Charles II in 1660 to serve the Royal Family. During her period of service, she was one of the Royal residences of the Royal Family (visitors can explore many of the Royal residences in London and Edinburgh today ).

• Displacement: 5,769 Gross Tons
• Length: 412 feet or 126 meters
• Capacity: 250 guests, 21 officers, and 250 Royal Yachtsmen

She was designed with three masts. She was even intended to be a place of refuge for the royal family in the time of war off the northwest coast of Scotland. She was also designed to be converted into a hospital ship in case of war (but that never happened).

• HMY Britannia was used to evacuate some 1,000 refugees from Yemen in 1986.

Related: How To Vacation Aboard A Charter Yacht Without Breaking The Bank

History & Service Of The HMY Britannia

HMY Britannia went on to travel over a million nautical miles around the proverbial Seven Seas calling into over 600 ports in some 135 countries.

• Miles: 1,087,623 nautical miles (2,014,278 km)
• Visits: 696 Foreign Visits, 272 Domestic British Visits

She was crewed by volunteers from the Royal Navy (some went on to serve aboard her for more than 20 years). She also had a detachment of the Royal Marines aboard. She was also escorted by a Royal Navy warship when she was on royal duties.

Britannia's maiden voyage took her from Portsmouth in England to Grand Harbour in Malta. In 1959, she sailed the newly opened Saint Lawrence Seaway as she made her way to Chicago (it was the first time a British monarch had visited Chicago).

• Commissioned: 1954
• Decommissioned: 1997

Over her 43-year career, she welcomed Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton aboard. She was decommissioned in 1997 and she was not replaced.

There have been suggestions to replace the Royal Yacht, but as of 2023, it seems these plans have gone nowhere.

In the past, yachts were important for heads of state to get around, but now they mostly fly.

Related: Visit Hillsborough Castle: The Royal Residence Of Northern Ireland

What To Know About Visiting The HMY Britannia

The HMY Britannia is one of the most notable attractions in Edinburgh today and is open to the public. The Britannia is a popular location in the city and attracts some 300,000 visitors every year.

Visitors can discover her rooms and secrets across five decks. Along the way, visitors learn about where the Royal Family would stay and the rooms and cabins for her 220 Royal Yachtsmen who served on her.

Admission comes with a free audio guide. Notable attractions on the five decks of the Britannia include the bridge, Queen Elizabeth II's favorite room, the crew quarters, the engine room, and browsing the Royal Sailing Exhibition.

• Location: Berthed at Ocean Terminal, Edinburgh, Scotland
• Admission: £18.50 ($24) - Adults

Opening Hours:

• April To August: 10:00 am to 6:00 pm (Last Admission 4:00 pm)
• November to December: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm (Last Admission 3:00 pm)

This is a British ship so naturally the Britannia Museum offers a cup of tea. Take the time to relax in the Royal Deck Tearoom and enjoy a soup, cake, scone, tea, coffee, or other refreshments while gazing out over the waterfront.

The admission hours vary throughout the year and the last admission is two hours before closing time. The Royal Yacht Britannia is closed on New Year's Day and Christmas Day.

The tickets can't be booked in advance, and they can only be booked in person at the Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre. For more information about visiting the Royal Yacht, refer to its website .

Those who would like to take their visit to the next level can consider staying the night on the museum's sister ship, the Fingal . The Fingal is Scotland's only luxury floating hotel and is moored near the Royal Yacht. She has 22 luxurious cabins and comes with the Fingal Lighthouse Restaurant & Bar.

While in Edinburgh take the time to visit the Palace of Holyroodhouse , the royal home of Scotland and then British monarchs. In England, visit Windsor Castle and see the longest continuously occupied palace in the world .

• Royal Deck Tearoom
• Group Visit
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• Annual Pass
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• What's On
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• Private Dining
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• Explore Britannia
• Royal Residence
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The Royal Yacht Britannia, Ocean Drive, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 6JJ

Tel: 0131 555 5566 Email us: [email protected]

Britannia will be closed 11-23 March and 25-28 June due to the redevelopment of Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre

• Search this website

Planning a visit in 2024?

Due to the  upcoming construction work at Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre , Britannia will be closed 11 - 23 March and 25 - 28 June. As part of this redevelopment, Britannia will also be gaining a new Visitor Centre and Gift Shop which will involve us operating out of temporary accommodation whilst these new facilities are being created. Our temporary Gift Shop is now open on the Ground Floor of Ocean Terminal. 

STEP ABOARD FOR A GREAT DAY OUT

A Royal residence for over 40 years, The Royal Yacht Britannia sailed over 1,000,000 nautical miles on 968 state visits with the Royal Family where they entertained prime ministers and presidents. Now  Tripadvisor’s No.1 UK Attraction 2023 , you can discover across five decks stories of life at sea for both the Royal Family and the 220 Royal Yachtsmen who served on board. Our five-star visitor attraction is located in Leith, just two miles from Edinburgh's city centre.

What will I see?

• Britannia’s five decks with your  free audio guide
• Feel like the captain of the ship in the Bridge
• Follow in the footsteps of Royalty through the State Apartments
• See Queen Elizabeth II's favourite room
• Discover below decks in the Crew’s Quarters
• Admire a tour highlight, the gleaming Engine Room
• Take in the Royal Sailing Exhibition
• Enjoy soups, sandwiches, cakes and scones in the  Royal Deck Tearoom
• Admire the stunning waterfront views from the Best UK Attraction (Tripadvisor)

Opening Times

*Due to upcoming construction work at Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre , Britannia will be closed 11 - 23 March and 25 - 28 June. The Royal Yacht Britannia is closed on 1 January and 25 December. The last admission to the Royal Yacht on 24 December is 2:30pm.

Tickets & Prices

** Armed Forces, student and carer tickets are only available at the ticket desk. They cannot be pre-booked, but are available to buy on the day of visit.

  See our FAQ page for further details.

Getting Here

Looking for directions? Find out how to find Britannia via tram, bus or car.

Our Hotel, Fingal

Our sister ship, Fingal , is Scotland’s only luxury floating hotel and is a world-class experience from the moment you step aboard. Awarded AA Hotel of the Year Scotland, the 22 luxurious cabins are inspired by its rich maritime heritage and are an indulgent experience like no other.

Tripadvisor’s No.1 UK Attraction 2023

We are delighted to be Tripadvisor’s No.1 UK Attraction 2023 and a Best of the Best award winner.  Fewer than 1% of Tripadvisor’s 8 million listings are awarded Best of the Best, signifying the highest level of excellence in travel.

HM The King's visit

On 3 July 2023, His Majesty King Charles III attended a reception on board The Royal Yacht Britannia for the Association of Royal Yachtsmen to commemorate 25 years  since Britannia arrived in Leith.

Stay at our five-star 22-cabin luxury floating hotel, Fingal.

Sustainability

At Britannia, we are committed to ensuring that we have environmentally sensitive policies and best practice procedures throughout all aspects of our business.

Visiting Britannia

Due to upcoming construction work at Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre , Britannia will be closed 11 - 23 March and 25-28 June.

Click on the Visit page  for all you need to know before you visit.

Step aboard to enjoy a great day out!

Fingal Hotel

Get away from the everyday aboard Britannia’s sister ship, Fingal.  Extend your visit with a stay in one of Fingal’s luxurious cabins, your own oasis by the sea. 

AA Hotel of the Year Scotland, AA five-star hotel and 2 AA Rosettes

Learn more: fingal.co.uk

Three decades after the Soviet era, this Moscow street echoes what was.

And hints where russia is heading., welcome to tverskaya street.

MOSCOW — Thirty years ago, the Soviet Union ceased to be. The flag was lowered for the last time on Dec. 25, 1991. That moment still raises deep questions for the U.S.S.R.’s heirs: “Who were we as Soviets, and where are we going as Russians?”

Many of the answers can be found on Moscow’s main thoroughfare — named Gorky Street, after writer Maxim Gorky, from 1932 to 1990, and renamed Tverskaya Street, a nod to the ancient city of Tver, as the Soviet Union was awash in last-gasp reforms.

It was the Soviet Union’s display window on the bright future that Kremlin-run communism was supposed to bring. It was where the KGB dined, the rich spent their rubles, Vladimir Lenin gave speeches from a balcony, and authorities wielded their power against one of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

In the 1990s, Tverskaya embodied the fast-money excesses of the post-Soviet free-for-all. In later years, it was packed with hopeful pro-democracy marchers. And now , under President Vladimir Putin, it is a symbol of his dreams of reviving Russia as a great power, reliving past glories and crushing any opposition to his rule.

Join a tour of Moscow’s famed Tverskaya Street.

Hotel National: Where the Soviet government began

The window in Room 107 at the Hotel National faces Red Square and the Kremlin. It offers a perfect view of Lenin’s tomb — fitting, since he was Room 107’s most famous guest.

The Kremlin was damaged during the Russian Revolution in 1917. So Lenin and his wife moved into Room 107 for seven days in March 1918, making the hotel the first home of the Soviet government.

The Hotel National in Moscow, from top: Artwork in the Socialist Realist style — which artists were ordered to adopt in the 1930s — still adorns the hotel; Elena Pozolotina has worked at the hotel since 1995; the hotel, which contains a restaurant, was built in 1902; the National has hosted notable guests, including Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and actor Jack Nicholson. (Photos by Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post)

The National, built in 1902 during the era of Imperial Russia, also accommodated other Soviet leaders, including Leon Trotsky and Felix Dzerzhinsky, chief of the secret police. The building continued to be used by the Soviet government as a hostel for official party delegates and was renamed First House of Soviets in 1919.

Guests can now stay in the same room Lenin did for about $1,300 a night. In more recent years, the hotel has hosted notable guests including Barack Obama (when he was a senator) and actor Jack Nicholson.

“This hotel feels a little like a museum,” said Elena Pozolotina, who has worked at the National since 1995.

“We have rooms that look onto Tverskaya Street, and we always explain to guests that this is the main street of our city,” Pozolotina said. “This corner of Tverskaya that we occupy, it’s priceless.”

Stalin’s plan: ‘The building is moving’

When Soviet leader Joseph Stalin demanded a massive redevelopment of Moscow in 1935, an order came to transform modest Gorky Street into a wide, awe-inspiring boulevard.

Engineer Emmanuel Gendel had the job of moving massive buildings to make way for others. Churches and monasteries were blown up, replaced by newspaper offices and a huge cinema.

The Moscow Central Eye Hospital was sheared from its foundation, rotated 97 degrees, jacked up, hitched on rails and pushed back 20 yards — with surgeons operating all the while, or so official media reported at the time.

Gendel’s daughter, then about 8, proudly stood at a microphone, announcing: “Attention, attention, the building is moving.” Tatiana Yastrzhembskaya, Gendel’s granddaughter and president of the Winter Ball charity foundation in Moscow, recalls that Gendel extolled communism but also enjoyed the rewards of the elite. He drove a fine car and always brought the family the best cakes and candies, she said.

The largest Gorky Street building Gendel moved was the Savvinskoye Courtyard. The most difficult was the Mossoviet, or Moscow city hall, with a balcony where Lenin had given speeches. The building, the former residence of the Moscow governor general, had to be moved with its basement. The ground floor had been a ballroom without central structural supports.

Moving buildings on Gorky Street in 1940, from left: A mechanic at a control panel regulates the supply of electricity while a house is being moved; a postal worker passes a moving house; a specialist unwinds a telephone cable during a building move to maintain uninterrupted communication; 13 rail tracks were placed under a house, on which 1,200 metal rollers were laid. (Photos by RGAKFD)

Gendel’s skills were used all over the U.S.S.R. — straightening towers on ancient mosques in Uzbekistan, inventing a means to drag tanks from rivers during World War II and consulting on the Moscow Metro.

Like many of the Soviet Union’s brightest talents, Gendel found that his freedom was tenuous. His ex-wife was called by the KGB internal spy agency in 1937 and asked to denounce him. She refused, and he avoided arrest.

“I believe he was not arrested and sent to the camps because he was a unique expert,” said Yastrzhembskaya. World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, interrupted the Master Plan for Gorky Street.

Aragvi restaurant: A haunt of the KGB

In the 1930s, the head of the elite NKVD secret police, Lavrenty Beria, one of the architects of the Stalin-era purges, ordered the construction of a state-owned restaurant, Aragvi, to showcase food from his home republic of Georgia.

One night, NKVD agents descended in several black cars on a humble Georgian canteen in Moscow that Beria had once visited. The agents ordered the chef, Longinoz Stazhadze, to come with them. The feared NKVD was a precursor to the KGB.

Stazhadze thought he was being arrested, his son Levan told Russian media. He was taken to Beria, who said that he had agreed with “the Boss” (Stalin) that Stazhadze would run Aragvi. Stazhadze had grown up a peasant, sent to work in a prince’s kitchens as a boy.

Aragvi opened in 1938. It was only for the gilded set, a reminder that the “Soviet paradise” was anything but equitable. The prices were astronomical. It was impossible to get a table unless the doorman knew you or you could pay a hefty bribe.

Aragvi, at No. 6 Tverskaya, was a favorite of the secret police; government officials; cosmonauts and pilots; stars of theater, movies and ballet; directors; poets; chess masters. Beria reputedly dined in a private room. Poet Sergei Mikhalkov said he composed the lyrics of the Soviet national anthem while sitting in the restaurant in 1943.

It was privatized in the 1990s and struggled, before closing in 2002. It reopened in 2016 after a $20 million renovation. But the new Aragvi closed abruptly in 2019 amid reports of a conflict between its owner and the building managers.

“You put your entire soul into cooking,” said the former head chef, Nugzar Nebieridze, 59, celebrated for his khinkali, a meaty dumpling almost the size of a tennis ball. He was devastated to find himself unemployed. But other doors opened. He now prefers to travel, giving master classes around Russia.

Stalin’s funeral: A deadly street crush that never officially happened

On March 6, 1953, the day after Stalin died of a stroke, an estimated 2 million Muscovites poured onto the streets. They hoped to catch a glimpse of his body, covered with flowers and laid out in the marbled Hall of Columns near Red Square.

Yulia Revazova, then 13, sneaked from her house with her cousin Valery without telling their parents. As they walked toward Pushkin Square, at one end of Gorky Street, the procession turned into a scene of horror. They saw people falling and being trampled. Some were crushed against metal fences. Valery, who was a few years older, grabbed Yulia by the hand and dragged her out of the crowd.

“He held my hand really tight and never let it go, because it was pure madness,” she recalled recently. “It took us four or five hours to get out of there. People kept coming and coming. I couldn’t even call it a column; it was just an uncontrollable mass of people.”

“I still have this feeling, the fear of massive crowds,” added Revazova, 82. “To this day, if I see a huge group of people or a really long line, I just cross the street.”

Neither Revazova nor her cousin knew about Stalin’s repressions.

“People were crying. I saw many women holding little handkerchiefs, wiping away tears and wailing,” she recalled. “That’s the psychology of a Soviet person. If there is no overarching figure above, be it God or Lenin, life will come crashing down. The era was over, and there was fear. What will we do without Stalin?”

Officials never revealed how many people died that day. The Soviet-approved archival footage of the four days of national mourning showed only orderly marches and memorials.

No. 9: The ruthless culture minister

The Soviet culture minister, the steely Yekaterina Furtseva, was nicknamed Catherine the Third, after the forceful Russian Empress Catherine the Great. Furtseva destroyed writers, artists or anyone else who challenged Soviet ideas. She lived at an elite 1949 apartment building for government officials at No. 9 — an ultra-prestigious address with a view of the Kremlin.

Furtseva, a former small-town weaver, made sure that No. 9 was only for the cream of party officials and other notables, such as famous Soviet actress Natalia Seleznyova, scientists, conductors and architects.

Riding the coattails of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Furtseva was the only woman in the Politburo and later became the Soviet Union’s cultural gatekeeper despite her provincial sensibilities. She once infamously mixed up a symphony with an opera, and critics were quick to notice.

“She had little in common with the artistic leaders of her country except a liking for vodka,” Norwegian painter Victor Sparre wrote in his 1979 book on the repression of dissident Soviet writers, “The Flame in the Darkness.”

Furtseva was famous for previewing performances and declaring anyone even subtly critical of Soviet policies as being anti-state. Director Yuri Lyubimov described one such visit to Moscow’s Taganka Theater in 1969, when she turned up wearing diamond rings and an astrakhan coat. She banned the play “Alive,” depicting a cunning peasant’s struggle against the collective farm system. She “was livid, she kept shouting,” he told L’Alternative magazine in 1984. She stormed out, warning him she would use her influence, “up to the highest levels,” against him.

He was expelled from the party and in 1984 was stripped of his citizenship. She vehemently denounced Solzhenitsyn, and banned the Bolshoi Ballet’s version of “Carmen” in 1967 over prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya’s sensual performance and “un-Soviet” costumes that did not cover enough leg.

“The ballet is all erotica,” she told the dancer. “It’s alien to us.” But Plisetskaya, whom Khrushchev once called the world’s best dancer, fought back. The ballet went on with some excisions (the costumes stayed) and became a legend in the theater’s repertoire.

Furtseva was nearly felled by scandal in 1974, ordered to repay $80,000 spent building a luxurious dacha, or country home, using state labor. She died months later.

Where Solzhenitsyn was arrested

The Nobel Prize-winning Solzhenitsyn exposed the Soviet system’s cruelty against some of its brightest minds, trapped in the gulag, or prison camps.

Solzhenitsyn was given eight years of hard labor in 1945 for privately criticizing Stalin, then three years of exile in Kazakhstan, a Soviet republic at the time. His books were banned. After release from exile in 1956, he was allowed to make only 72-hour visits to the home of his second wife, Natalia, at 12 Gorky St., Apt. 169. Solzhenitsyn had to live outside the city.

“People knew that there were camps, but not many people, if any, knew what life was like in those camps. And he described it from the inside. He had been there himself, and that was shocking to a lot of people,” said Natalia Solzhenitsyna during a recent interview at the apartment, which became a museum in 2018.

“Many people say that he did make a contribution to the final fall of the Soviet Union.”

Solzhenitsyn, who died in 2008, called Russia “the land of smothered opportunities.” He wrote that it is always possible to live with integrity. Lies and evil might flourish — “but not through me.”

The museum displays tiny handwritten copies of Solzhenitsyn’s books, circulated secretly; film negatives of letters smuggled to the West; and beads made of compacted bread that he used to memorize poems in prison.

“He spent a lot of time here with his children. We were always very busy. And we just enjoyed ourselves — being together,” Solzhenitsyna said. They had three sons.

No. 12 Gorky St., from top: Natalia Solzhenitsyna lived in the apartment for years, and her husband, Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was allowed only short visits; the site now houses a museum displaying items connected to him, such as negatives containing a copy of a novel he wrote; another exhibit includes Solzhenitsyn’s clothes from when he was sent to the gulag and beads made of compacted bread that he used to memorize poems; the Nobel Prize-winning writer’s desk is featured at the museum. (Photos by Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post)

Because of KGB bugs, if the couple were discussing something sensitive, they wrote notes to each other, and then destroyed them. Two KGB agents usually roosted in the stairwell on the floor above, with two more on the floor below.

“The Soviet authorities were afraid of him because of his popularity among intellectuals, writers, people of culture and the intelligentsia.”

Her favorite room is decked with black-and-white photos of dissidents sent to the gulag, the Soviet Union’s sprawling system of forced labor camps. “It’s dedicated to the invisibles,” she said, pointing out friends.

Sweden planned to award Solzhenitsyn’s 1970 literature prize in the Gorky Street apartment, but the writer rejected a secret ceremony. A Swedish journalist in Moscow, Stig Fredrikson, was Solzhenitsyn’s smuggler. He carried Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel lecture on tightly rolled film disguised as a battery in a transistor radio, and he took other letters to the West and transported photos taped to his back.

“I felt that there was a sense of unfairness that he was so isolated and so persecuted,” Fredrikson said in a recent interview. “I got more and more scared and more and more afraid every time I met him.”

In 1971, the Soviet Union allegedly tried to poison Solzhenitsyn using a secret nerve agent, leaving him seriously ill. Early 1974 was tense. The prosecutor subpoenaed him. State newspapers railed against him.

The morning of Feb. 12, 1974, the couple worked in their study. In the afternoon, he walked his 5-month-old son, Stepan, in the yard below.

“He came back here, and literally a minute later, there was a ring at the door. There were eight men. They immediately broke the chain and got in,” his widow said. “There was a prosecutor in his prosecutor’s uniform, two men in plainclothes, and the rest were in military uniform. They told him to get dressed.”

“We hugged and we kept hugging for quite a while,” she recalled. “The last thing he told me was to take care of the children.”

He was deported to West Germany. The couple later settled in Vermont and set up a fund to help dissident writers, using royalties from his book “The Gulag Archipelago.” About 1,000 people still receive money from the fund, according to Solzhenitsyna.

When the writer and his wife returned to Russia in 1994, they traveled across the country by train. Thousands of people crushed into halls to hear him speak.

Solzhenitsyn abhorred the shock therapy and unchecked capitalism of the 1990s and preferred Putin’s tough nationalism. He died of heart failure at 89 in August 2008, five months after a presidential election in which Putin switched places with the prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, in a move that critics saw as a ploy to get around constitutional term limits.

No. 6: ‘Feasts of thought’

Behind a grand Stalin-era apartment block at 6 Gorky St. sits an ornate 1907 building famous for its facade, art nouveau glazed blue tiles, elegant arches and baroque spires. Once a monastery dormitory, it was a staple of pre-Soviet postcards from Moscow. But in November 1939, the 26,000-ton building was put on rails and pushed back to widen the street.

Linguists Lev and Raisa Kopelev lived in Apt. 201 on the top floor. Their spacious dining room became a favored haven for Moscow’s intelligentsia from the 1950s to the 1980s.

“People gathered all the time — to talk. In this apartment, like many other kitchens and dining rooms, at tables filled more often than not with vodka, herring and vinaigrette salad, feasts of thought took place,” said Svetlana Ivanova, Raisa’s daughter from another marriage, who lived in the apartment for nearly four decades.

Solzhenitsyn and fellow dissident Joseph Brodsky were Kopelev family friends, as were many other artists, poets, writers and scientists who formed the backbone of the Soviet human rights movement of the 1960s.

As a writer and dissident, Kopelev had turned his back on the Communist Party and a prestigious university position. The onetime gulag prisoner inspired the character Lev Rubin in Solzhenitsyn’s novel “In the First Circle,” depicting the fate of arrested scientists.

“The apartment was a special place for everyone. People there were not afraid to speak their mind on topics that would be considered otherwise risky,” Ivanova said. “A new, different spirit ruled in its walls.”

Eliseevsky: Pineapples during a famine

The Eliseevsky store at No. 16 was a landmark for 120 years — born in czarist Russia, a witness to the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, a survivor of wars, and a bastion during eras of shortages and plenty. It closed its doors in April.

Eliseevsky fell on hard times during the coronavirus pandemic, as international tourists dwindled and Russians sought cheaper grocery-shopping alternatives.

In the palace-like interior, two chandeliers hang from an ornate ceiling. Gilt columns line the walls. The front of the store, looking out at Tverskaya Street, has a row of stained glass.

The Eliseevsky store, which opened in 1901, is seen in April, with a few customers and some archival photos, as it prepared to close as an economic victim of the coronavirus pandemic. (Photos by Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post)

Denis Romodin, a historian at the Museum of Moscow, said Eliseevsky is one of only two retail spaces in Moscow with such pre-revolutionary interiors. But Eliseevsky’s level of preservation made it “one of a kind,” he said.

The building was once owned by Zinaida Volkonskaya, a princess and Russian cultural figure in the 19th century. She remodeled the house into a literary salon whose luminaries included Russia’s greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin.

St. Petersburg merchant Grigory Eliseev opened the market in 1901. It quickly became a hit among Russian nobility for its selection of European wines and cheeses.

Romodin said it was Russia’s first store with price tags. Before Eliseevsky, haggling was the norm. And it was also unique in having innovative technology for the time: electric-powered refrigerators and display cases that allowed goods to be stored longer.

Even in the Soviet Union’s hungriest years, the 1930s famine, Eliseevsky stocked pineapples.

“One could find outlandish delicacies here, which at that time seemed very exotic,” Romodin said. “It was already impossible to surprise Muscovites with wine shops. But a grocery store with luxurious interiors, and large for that time, amazed and delighted Muscovites.”

The First Gallery: A glimpse of openness

In 1989, in a dusty government office by a corner of Pushkin Square, three young artists threw off decades of suffocating state control and opened the Soviet Union’s first independent art gallery.

That April, Yevgeny Mitta and two fellow students, Aidan Salakhova and Alexander Yakut, opened First Gallery. At the time, the Soviet Union was opening up under policies including glasnost, which gave more room for public debate and criticism.

Artists were ordered to adopt the Socialist Realist style in 1934, depicting scenes such as happy collective farmworkers. Expressionist, abstract and avant-garde art was banned. From the 1970s, underground art exhibitions were the only outlets to break the Soviet-imposed rules.

The First Gallery, from top: Yevgeny Mitta, Aidan Salakhova and Alexander Yakut opened the Soviet Union’s first independent art gallery in 1989 and received media attention; Mitta works on a painting that he displayed at his gallery; Mitta recalled recently that he “felt we had to make something new”; an undated photo of Mitta at his gallery in Soviet times. (Photos by Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post and courtesy of Yevgeny Mitta)

“I just felt we had to make something new,” recalled Mitta, 58, who kept his interest in contemporary expressionism a secret at a top Moscow art school in the 1980s.

“It was like nothing really happened in art history in the 20th century, like it stopped,” he said. “The Socialist Realism doctrine was invented and spread to the artists as the only one, possible way of developing paintings, films and literature.”

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, artists had to “learn how to survive, what to do, how to work and make a living,” he said.

McDonald’s: ‘We were not used to smiling’

In the Soviet Union’s final years, a mania raged for all things Western. Estée Lauder opened the first Western-brand shop on Gorky Street in 1989, after meeting Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, in December 1988.

The Soviet Union’s first McDonald’s, located across Pushkin Square on Gorky Street, opened on Jan. 31, 1990 — a yellow-arched symbol of Gorbachev’s perestroika economic reforms. Pizza Hut opened later that year. (In 1998, Gorbachev starred in a commercial for the pizza chain.)

Karina Pogosova and Anna Patrunina were cashiers at the McDonald’s on opening day. The line stretched several blocks. Police officers stood watch to keep it organized.

The Soviet Union’s first McDonald’s opened in 1990 and eager customers lined up to enter; Karina Pogosova, left, and Anna Patrunina were cashiers at the fast-food restaurant on Gorky Street then, and they are senior executives with the company today. (Photos by Peter Turnley/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images and Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post)

“The atmosphere was wonderful. The first day I had to smile the entire day and my face muscles hurt,” Patrunina said. “This is not a joke. Russians do not smile in general, so we were not used to smiling at all, not to mention for more than eight hours straight.”

Pogosova and Patrunina were students at the Moscow Aviation Institute when they learned McDonald’s was hiring through an ad in a Moscow newspaper. Interview questions included: “How fast can you run 100 meters?” It was to gauge if someone was energetic enough for the job.

Pogosova and Patrunina are still with the company today, as senior vice president of development and franchising and vice president of operations, respectively.

“I thought that this is the world of opportunities and this new world is coming to our country, so I must be in this new world,” Patrunina said.

The smiling staff wasn’t the only culture shock for customers. Some had never tried the fountain sodas that were available. They were unaccustomed to food that wasn’t eaten with utensils. The colorful paper boxes that Big Macs came in were occasionally saved as souvenirs.

McDonald’s quickly became a landmark on the street.

“I remember very well that the street and the entire city was very dark and McDonald’s was like an island of light with bright signage,” Pogosova said. “The street started to change after McDonald’s opened its first restaurant there.”

Wild ’90s and a missing ballerina

The end of the Soviet Union uncorked Moscow’s wild 1990s. Some people made instant fortunes by acquiring state-owned enterprises at throwaway prices. Rules were being written on the fly. The city was pulsing with possibilities for those with money or those desperate to get some.

“It was easy to get drunk on this,” said Alex Shifrin, a former Saatchi & Saatchi advertising executive from Canada who lived in Moscow from the mid-1990s until the late 2000s.

It all was on full display at Night Flight, Moscow’s first nightclub, opened by Swedish managers in 1991, in the final months of the Soviet Union, at Tverskaya 17. The club introduced Moscow’s nouveau elite to “face control” — who merits getting past the rope line — and music-throbbing decadence.

The phrase “standing on Tverskaya” made its way into Russian vernacular as the street became a hot spot for prostitutes. Toward the end of the 2000s, Night Flight had lost its luster. The club scene in Moscow had moved on to bigger and bolder venues.

Decades before, No. 17 had been famous as the building with the dancer: a statue of a ballerina, holding a hammer and sickle, placed atop the cupola during Stalin’s building blitz.

Muscovites nicknamed the building the House Under the Skirt.

“The idea was to have Gorky Street as a museum of Soviet art. The statues represented a dance of socialism,” art historian Pavel Gnilorybov said. “The ballerina was a symbol of the freedom of women and the idea that, before the revolution, women were slaves. It is as if she is singing an ode to the regime.”

The crumbling statues were removed by 1958. People forgot them. Now a group of Muscovites, including Gnilorybov, are campaigning for the return of the ballerina.

“It’s an idea that we want to give the city as a gift. It’s not political,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”

Pushkin Square: For lovers and protesters

Pushkin Square has been Moscow’s favorite meeting place for friends, lovers and political demonstrations.

In November 1927, Trotskyist opponents of Stalin marched to the 27th House of Soviets at one end of Tverskaya Street, opposite the Hotel National, in one of the last public protests against the Soviet ruler.

In December 1965, several dozen dissidents gathered in Pushkin Square to protest the trials of two writers. It became an annual event. People would gather just before 6 p.m. and, on the hour, remove their hats for a minute.

In 1987, dissidents collected signatures at Pushkin Square and other locations calling for a memorial to those imprisoned or killed by the Soviet state. The movement evolved into Memorial, a leading human rights group. Memorial was declared a “foreign agent” in 2016 under Putin’s sweeping political crackdowns.

In January 2018, left, and January 2021, right, protesters gathered at Pushkin Square. (Photos by Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post)

Protests in support of opposition leader Alexei Navalny were held at Pushkin Square earlier this year. And it is where communists and liberals rallied on a rainy September night to protest 2021 parliamentary election results that gave a landslide win to Putin’s United Russia party despite widespread claims of fraud.

Nearly 30 years after the fall of the U.S.S.R., Putin’s Russia carries some echoes of the stories lived out in Soviet times — censorship and repressions are returning. Navalny was poisoned by a nerve agent in 2020 and later jailed. Many opposition figures and independent journalists have fled the country. The hope, sleaze and exhilaration of the 1990s have faded. Tverskaya Street has settled into calm stagnation, waiting for the next chapter.

Arthur Bondar contributed to this report.

Correction: A map accompanying this article incorrectly spelled the first name of a former Soviet leader. He is Vladimir Lenin, not Vladmir Lenin. The map has been corrected.

About this story

Story editing by Robyn Dixon and Brian Murphy. Photos and videos by Arthur Bondar. Archival footage from the Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive at Krasnogorsk; footage of Joseph Stalin’s funeral from the Martin Manhoff Archive, courtesy of Douglas Smith. Photo editing by Chloe Coleman. Video editing by Jason Aldag. Design and development by Yutao Chen. Design editing by Suzette Moyer. Maps by Dylan Moriarty. Graphics editing by Lauren Tierney. Copy editing by Melissa Ngo.

Russia-Ukraine War Ukrainian Drones Hit 2 Bases Deep in Russia

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• Saratov Oblast, Russia Explosion rocks Russian military base. EYEPRESS via Reuters
• Kyiv Residents take shelter in the Metro. Laura Boushnak for The New York Times
• Irpin Winter in Ukraine. David Guttenfelder for The New York Times
• Kherson region Salvaging a refrigerator from the ruins of a home. Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
• Borodyanka A makeshift center for those whose homes have been destroyed. Dimitar Dilkoff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
• Kharkiv Police officers look at collected fragments of Russian rockets. Libkos/Associated Press
• Bakhmut Chopping wood in a basement shelter. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
• Donetsk An office building destroyed in shelling. Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
• Eastern Ukraine Soldiers on the front line. Yevhen Titov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Follow live news updates on the Russia-Ukraine war .

Ukraine attacks military bases hundreds of miles inside Russia.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine executed its most brazen attack into Russian territory in the nine-month-old war on Monday, targeting two military bases hundreds of miles inside the country, using drones, according to the Russian Defense Ministry and a senior Ukrainian official.

The drones were launched from Ukrainian territory, and at least one of the strikes was made with the help of special forces close to the base who helped guide the drones to the target, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to convey sensitive information.

The strikes signaled a new willingness by Kyiv to take the fight to bases in the heart of Russia, raising the stakes in the war, and demonstrated for the first time Ukraine’s ability to attack at such long distances. Shortly after the attacks on the bases, Russia sent a barrage of missiles streaking toward Ukrainian cities.

The Kremlin said that the weapons launched by Ukraine were Soviet-era jet drones and were aimed at bases in Ryazan and Engels, about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border. It said that its forces had intercepted the drones, and that “the fall and explosion of the wreckage” had “slightly damaged” two planes, killing three servicemen and wounding four others.

The Engels airfield, on the Volga River in southern Russia, is a base for some of Russia’s long-range, nuclear-capable bombers, including the Tupolev-160 and Tupolev-95. Ukrainian officials say it is also a staging ground for Russia’s unrelenting campaign of missile attacks on infrastructure, which have left millions of Ukrainians with intermittent light, heat or water — or none at all — at the onset of winter. Security footage from an apartment complex near the base showed a fireball lighting up the sky.

The other explosion occurred at the Dyagilevo military base in the central city of Ryazan, only about 100 miles from Moscow, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry. It was there that the fatalities and injuries occurred, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Ukraine’s government declined to publicly acknowledge the strikes, in keeping with its practice with other attacks on Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea.

The Engels air base and the Ryazan military installation are between 300 and 450 miles from the Ukrainian border, which is beyond the range of any known missile in Ukraine’s arsenal.

Even before Russia’s Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of sending drones to attack, the blast at the Engels airfield had prompted some of Russia’s influential pro-invasion bloggers to call for more strikes against Ukraine, and to renew criticism of the Russian armed forces. “Sometimes we feel that even if you put a bomb into these people’s pockets — they wouldn’t notice anyway,” Voenniy Osvedomitel, a popular commentator, wrote on the messaging app Telegram.

After the explosions, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, appeared to note the strikes obliquely, as Ukrainian officials have often done after unexplained explosions inside Russia.

“The Earth is round — discovery made by Galileo,” he wrote on Twitter . “If something is launched into other countries’ airspace, sooner or later unknown flying objects will return to departure point.”

Only a few hours after the explosions, Ukrainian officials said that more than a dozen Russian bombers had taken off from the Engels air base.

Ivan Nechepurenko and Helene Cooper contributed reporting.

— Andrew E. Kramer ,  Michael Schwirtz and Marc Santora

Russia fired a barrage of missiles across Ukraine on Monday.

Russia launched a volley of missiles at Ukraine’s energy grid on Monday, knocking out power in several regions, officials said, the latest in a monthslong campaign of strikes by Moscow targeting civilian infrastructure.

Ukrainian air defense systems fired into the sky in multiple areas of the country but not all missiles were intercepted. Four people were killed by the Russian strikes, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, and officials reported damage to energy infrastructure.

When air-raid warnings were issued for most of the country, Ukrainians followed a grim routine and headed for bomb shelters in Kyiv and other cities. Shortly after the all-clear was given, Mr. Zelensky addressed the nation to praise both the military and utility workers fighting to keep the lights on.

“Air defenses shot down most of the rockets, energy workers have already started to restore electricity,” he said. Ukraine’s Air Force later said that it had shot down more than 60 missiles out of more than 70 fired.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement that it had targeted power plants and other sites in Ukraine. Ukraine’s prime minister said energy facilities were hit in the Kyiv, Vinnytsia and Odesa regions, according to the Ukrinform news agency.

The strikes occurred hours after explosions were reported at two military bases deep inside Russia, including one that Ukraine said has been used as a staging ground for aircraft in previous attacks against Ukraine’s energy grid. Russia’s Ministry of Defense later accused Ukraine of using drones to attack the bases.

By midafternoon in Ukraine, multiple reports had surfaced of inbound missiles. A New York Times reporter south of Kyiv saw a cruise missile in flight traveling toward the capital. Another New York Times reporter observed what appeared to be a surface-to-air-missile launched outside of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine. The extent of damage, and of casualties, was not immediately clear.

The governor of the Kyiv region, the administrative district around the capital, said that air defense systems had fired at incoming missiles. “Stay in shelters and safe places,” the governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, wrote in a statement on Telegram.

Ukraine’s national energy company, Ukrenergo, said that the “mass missile attack” had damaged electrical facilities. In a statement posted on Facebook , it said emergency energy shutdowns would be imposed to help balance the grid.

Blackouts were reported in several regions, from Sumy in the north along the border with Russia to Odesa in the south on the Black Sea coast.

The Russian military typically launches missiles from multiple directions and in successive waves, a tactic intended to overwhelm or avoid Ukraine’s air defenses, Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, told a Ukrainian television news show.

Russia began firing missiles at Ukraine’s energy grid in October after its forces lost ground on the battlefield in two Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in the south and northeast.

Ukrainians have responded to the wave of strikes on infrastructure by building emergency heating shelters in towns, dispatching linemen to repair the grid as swiftly as possible and powering restaurants, stores and hospitals with generators . In hard-hit areas, residents stockpile water in bottles in their homes.

And Ukrainians have adapted. In Kryvyi Rih, a central city that is a hub of the iron-mining industry, miners evacuated to the surface on Monday, lest electricity for their elevators be lost, the city’s mayor said. After past strikes, miners had been trapped underground.

Ukraine has greatly increased its capacity to shoot down incoming missiles, aided by air defense systems supplied by the United States and some European countries..

Carlotta Gall and Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting.

— Andrew E. Kramer and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

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When the air raid sirens ring out, residents of Kyiv head underground.

KYIV, Ukraine — In a city where daily routines have been wrecked by unrelenting Russian missile strikes, unpredictable power cuts and unreliable water supplies, residents of Kyiv know that, at any time, they might have to spend a few hours in an air raid shelter.

It had been 13 days since the last large-scale barrage of Russian missiles fired at targets across Ukraine, the longest stretch without blasts in and around the capital since Moscow began its assault on the nation’s energy infrastructure in early October. For days, Ukrainian officials had been warning that another attack was imminent.

So when the air raid alarms sounded across Kyiv early on Monday afternoon, many people were not surprised. The sirens were followed by warnings that missiles were inbound, and soon after the thunder of air defense systems could be heard over the capital.

“To be honest I feel relief this time,” said Olha Kotrus, 34. “For two weeks there were reports that it might happen and then you live in constant tension.”

Ms. Kotrus was sitting on the floor of a Kyiv metro station with her mom, a cat in a cage and her dog. The dog, dressed in a blue outfit to keep it warm in the winter chill, was visibly stressed. Ms. Kotrus was angry and fed up.

She joined a crowd of hundreds people deep underground at the metro station Golden Gate, named after the main fortification that served as the entrance to the city 1,000 years ago.

By evening, however, the famed gate was not illuminated, forced into darkness like much of the city. Monday’s barrage of rockets targeting sites around the country was the eighth such wave of attacks on key energy infrastructure targets, according to the national utility operator, Ukrenergo.

“Unfortunately, energy infrastructure facilities have already been hit and there have been emergency power outages related to this,” Ukrenergo said in a statement.

At least ten rockets were aimed at Kyiv on Monday, according to local officials. Nine were shot down above the capital, the officials said.

Like everyone interviewed in Kyiv, Ms. Kotrus’s anger was directed at Russia and her frustration was the result of many days filled with anxiety and long, dark nights with no power.

Anna Sokolova, 21, said she had endured cuts in power and water supplies for two weeks, ever since the last wave of missiles. Ms. Sokolova lives near a local utility headquarters that has been targeted in recent Russian strikes and said she always takes shelter when the alarms sound.

But she did not want to complain about her own hardships, saying it is nothing compared to what her friends, soldiers fighting on the front lines, are experiencing.

Lyumyla Vonifatova, 66, agreed.

“We all understand that without electricity, life becomes impossible,” she said. “Yet, we will just have to find a way to get through it.”

She was passing the time in the subway shelter by looking at a small display of photos of this war and others that came before it.

“Despite all the loss of human life and economic hardship, we will stand until the end,” she said. “Because this is a fight for our freedom.”

But Tetyana Tkachenko’s six-year-old son is too small to understand that. She said he is terrified every time the alarms sound.

“He was crying, running around,” when the alarms began to sound, Ms. Tkachenko said. He quickly put on warm clothes and begged to “go to the subway,” she said.

She grabbed two foldable chairs, previously used for the park or beach. But now they were part of the family’s new routine, for when the sirens sound and they head deep underground.

— Marc Santora and Maria Varenikova

Putin inspects a bridge linking Russia and Crimea, two months after a damaging explosion.

President Vladimir V. Putin inspected repairs to a bridge that links the country with the Crimean Peninsula on Monday, two months after an explosion partly destroyed it in an embarrassing blow to the Russian leader and Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

The October attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge, a pet project of Mr. Putin’s that became a key supply route for Moscow’s forces in southern Ukraine, was a critical moment in the war. The Kremlin accused Ukraine of orchestrating the blast, which underscored Russia’s inability to protect a key strategic asset and prompted Moscow to unleash a wave of airstrikes on Ukraine.

Video published by the Kremlin showed Mr. Putin driving a Mercedes car over the bridge. Accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who is in charge of the repair, Mr. Putin inquired about the progress of the work and said he hoped the road and rail bridge would be fully restored by the middle of the summer vacation season.

Pointing at the still-charred railway section of the bridge, he said that “this was a big explosion.”

When the bridge opened in 2018, it was a powerful symbol of the connection the Kremlin was attempting to forge between Russia and Crimea, a Ukrainian region illegally annexed by Moscow four years earlier. Mr. Putin took personal credit for its construction, driving a truck along its 12-mile span at the head of a convoy.

On Monday, he also took credit for building two railway tracks and two traffic lanes each way, as the redundancy allowed traffic to be partially restored soon after the explosion hit in October.

While Ukraine’s government did not claim responsibility for the blast, which sent part of the bridge crashing into the sea on Oct. 8, a senior Ukrainian official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a government ban on discussing the blast, confirmed that Ukraine’s intelligence services were behind it .

The Kerch attack came during a period of setbacks for Russian forces in Ukraine, including the loss of territory it had captured in the northeast of the country. Two days after the attack on the bridge, Russia escalated a strategy of pounding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with waves of missiles launched at power stations and other facilities.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Ivan Nechepurenko

A woman is shot and killed trying to cross into Ukrainian-held territory in Kherson.

KHERSON, Ukraine — A 65-year-old woman was shot to death on Sunday evening as she tried to escape in a boat from Russian-occupied territory in Kherson, Ukrainian officials said, illustrating the perils of Ukraine’s call for civilians to evacuate Russian-held areas in the heavily contested southern region.

Ukrainian officials blamed Russian soldiers in the killing; there was no immediate comment from the Russian side. The woman was crossing the Dnipro River, attempting to thread a gantlet of Russian and Ukrainian troops dug in on opposite banks near the city of Kherson, when she was killed in a hail of automatic gunfire, according to a statement from the City Council.

Both armies have been heavily shelling each other across the river, which has become a front line three weeks after Ukraine reclaimed Kherson city on the west bank and Russian forces withdrew to defensive positions on the eastern side. On Saturday, Ukrainian officials encouraged people to flee Russian-occupied areas on the eastern bank, warning of a “possible intensification of hostilities.”

But even before the woman was killed, many Ukrainians had complained on social media channels that the evacuation plan, which required individuals to use private boats to cross a dangerous river, was poorly organized. The announcement on Saturday did not specify the areas people should flee from or whether the advice applied in towns still occupied by Russian troops.

One of those towns, Hola Prystan, which lies several miles downriver from Kherson, was the area that the woman who was killed tried to escape, according to a statement released by the Kherson City Council on Sunday night.

“A 65-year-old woman who was crossing the Dnipro River with her husband on a boat, leaving a country house in the Hola Prystan district, was wounded by automatic fire. Unfortunately, the woman did not survive,” the statement read.

On Monday, Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, a spokesman for the Kherson regional military administration, said that the area was not covered by the evacuation plan.

“Navigation there is not open,” he said. “It is still banned to cross river there by boats. People can move there at their own risk.”

The area around Kherson and Hola Prystan is a watery landscape of river channels and small marshy islands, some with summer homes on them. The Kherson authorities’ plan was to have evacuees come to Kherson’s main river port, which itself has come under heavy shelling in the past week. Until the evacuation was announced, the Ukrainian military had prohibited people from traveling by boat on the river. The plan was to allow daylight river crossings for three days, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

The mood in Kherson has turned grim in the three weeks since Ukrainian forces swept in, when the city throbbed with jubilation as people poured into the streets, hugged soldiers, waved flags and snapped selfies. As Russian forces continue to shell the city relentlessly, more than 18 people have been killed in the past two weeks and dozens more wounded, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukrainian forces have been eager to push the Russians farther away and get Kherson out of artillery range. Over the weekend, a Ukrainian military unit released a video purporting to show the raising of a Ukrainian flag on the eastern bank of the Dnipro. Although there was no indication that Ukraine had established a permanent military presence at the site, the video was an apparent sign of Kyiv’s intent to continue its counteroffensive in the south.

Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contributed reporting.

— Jeffrey Gettleman

An E.U. embargo of Russian oil and the G7’s price cap take effect.

Europe and the United States started enforcing on Monday two of the toughest measures aimed at curbing Russia’s income from oil, the principal source of cash used to fund its nearly 10-month-old war in Ukraine.

The first, a price cap initiative led by the United States, aims to increase economic pressure on the Kremlin while avoiding a global oil shock . The limit was set at $60 per barrel, and was endorsed by the Group of 7 countries, Australia, and members of the European Union.

The second is an embargo under which European nations will no longer be able to buy most Russian crude as of Monday. It was a step that the European Union had agreed to months ago but that was phased in with exceptions to prepare member nations.

Prices gyrated in the oil markets on Monday, with Brent crude, the international benchmark, up by about 2.5 percent, to $87.75 a barrel, at midday in Europe. West Texas Intermediate future were selling at $82 a barrel.

An immediate impact on oil supplies in Europe was not expected, partly because the embargo has been in the works for months, and energy companies have already begun buying more oil from the United States, Brazil, Guyana and the Middle East.

Although analysts and traders say the price cap may prove a nightmare to administer, one expert on sanctions said the lengthy negotiations had produced a deal with the potential to work.

“I suspect the compromise that was reached gives the policy the best chance it could have to succeed,” said Edward Fishman, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

Mr. Fishman, who previously led planning and implementation of sanctions on Russia at the Department of State, said there were several reasons to be optimistic. One is the recent softness of oil markets, which he interpreted as meaning that Russian oil was no longer as critical to the markets as it was a few months ago. He also said the agreed $60 price was a “Goldilocks” level, not so high as to give Russia even more revenue than it is currently receiving or so low as to discourage Moscow from producing oil.

He also said that the cap’s provision to review the price level every two months, or more frequently if needed, provided the “flexibility” that historically has helped make sanctions, like those targeting Iran’s oil sales, effective.

Still, skepticism about the likely efficacy of the measures stems in part from the United States and European countries mandating European shippers and insurers to enforce it by declining to handle cargoes priced above the $60-a-barrel level.

— Stanley Reed

Ukraine will auction a yacht seized from a Putin ally.

As Ukraine scrambles to fund its fight against Russia’s invasion, a potential new source of tens of millions of dollars has materialized — the planned sale of a superyacht seized from one of Ukraine’s most famous pro-Russian oligarchs.

Soon after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, Ukrainian authorities announced they had taken possession of properties belonging to Viktor Medvedchuk , a prominent pro-Russian politician and a close friend of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

For years, Mr. Medvedchuk was seen as the Kremlin’s primary agent of influence in Ukraine. Mr. Putin is the godfather of Mr. Medvedchuk’s daughter.

The confiscated assets included the Royal Romance, a 300-foot yacht docked in a Croatian port that is linked to Mr. Medvedchuk. According to its Dutch manufacturer, Feadship, the ship has a 40-foot swimming pool, a gym, a waterfall feature, and an estimated value of more than $200 million. The yacht and other assets were confiscated as part of a criminal investigation in which Mr. Medvedchuk is suspected of treason, according to Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation .

Last week, ARMA, Ukraine’s government agency for asset recovery and management, said that a district court in Split, Croatia, had entrusted the city’s port administration with implementing the transfer of the yacht to the agency. ARMA described the Royal Romance, which has 50 rooms, as “one of the largest yachts in the world” and said that it plans to auction the vessel to “preserve its economic value.”

Ukrainians welcomed the proposed sale, with some celebrating on social media and joking that Mr. Medvedchuk would be making a large donation to Ukraine’s armed forces.

ARMA was created in Ukraine in 2016 to seize the assets of officials in corruption cases, but since the invasion it has also turned its attention to the property of Russians and of Ukrainians who are accused of collaborating with Russia.

Mr. Medvedchuk, a prominent figure in the pro-Russian wing of Ukrainian politics and a former deputy speaker of Ukraine’s Parliament, had been under criminal investigation in Ukraine before the invasion. Ukrainian security forces captured him in April, after he fled house arrest while awaiting trial on treason charges. Ukrainian authorities handed him over to Russia in September in a prisoner exchange.

Mr. Medvedchuk was also mentioned in U.S. investigations into Russian electoral meddling, as a client of the Republican political consultant Paul Manafort. He denied wrongdoing and said Mr. Manafort had merely advised his party on electoral strategy.

The Royal Romance officially belongs to a company called Lanelia Holdings, based in the Marshall Islands, according to Equasis , a major shipping information database. The ship changed ownership in 2021, when Ukraine imposed sanctions on Mr. Medvedchuk.

Last summer, a superyacht linked to a Russian businessman under sanctions was auctioned in Gibraltar, but the profits were set to repay his creditors rather than replenish Ukraine’s accounts. In general, the process through which seized assets can be permanently confiscated and sold to benefit Ukraine is cumbersome and can take years .

— Emma Bubola and Anastasia Kuznietsova

To help Ukraine, a widow parts with a rare emerald from a 1622 shipwreck.

For years, Mitzi Perdue looked down at her hand and saw history.

The emerald stone on her ring finger told a story stretching back nearly four centuries, to the sinking of a Spanish galleon near the Florida Keys in 1622 and a decades-long effort of a colorful undersea treasure hunter named Mel Fisher to retrieve its payload of gold and silver coins, gold nuggets and jewelry.

It reminded her, too, of her late husband, the chicken magnate Frank Perdue, who received a share of the bounty in return for his investment in Mr. Fisher’s search. He donated most of it, but kept the emerald and presented it to her when he proposed marriage in 1988. She wore it until his death in 2005 , when she put it away for safekeeping.

Now, 400 years after the Nuestra Señora de Atocha sank in a hurricane, Ms. Perdue, 81, is putting the emerald up for auction on Wednesday at Sotheby’s in New York City. All proceeds from the sale of the ring, which Sotheby’s says has an estimated value of $50,000 to $70,000, will be donated to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, prompted by Ms. Perdue’s visit there this year after the Russian invasion .

“What must it be like for the people who have been there enduring, continuously with no respite, for at least half a year?” she said. “After five days, I wanted to do more. And then I started thinking, ‘What can I do to be most helpful?’ And then I thought, ‘I own something that’s of historic significance.’”

— April Rubin

Russia continues to manufacture cruise missiles despite Western sanctions, experts say.

Some of the cruise missiles that Russia launched at Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure in late November were manufactured months after the West imposed sanctions intended to deprive Moscow of the components needed to make those munitions, according to a weapons research group.

Experts examined remnants of Kh-101 cruise missiles found in Kyiv, the capital, after an attack on Nov. 23 that knocked out electricity and shut down water systems in large areas of the country. One of the missiles was made this summer, and another was completed after September, markings on the weapons show, according to a report released by the investigators on Monday .

That Russia has continued to make advanced guided missiles like the Kh-101 suggests that it has found ways to acquire semiconductors and other matériel despite the sanctions or that it had significant stockpiles of the components before the war began, one of the researchers said.

The findings are among the most recent by Conflict Armament Research , an independent group based in Britain that identifies and tracks weapons and ammunition used in wars. A small team of its researchers arrived in Kyiv just before the attack at the invitation of the Ukrainian security service.

— John Ismay