Kareliya

Kareliya was the last of five structurally identical sister ships. It’s constantly changed its name over the course of the decades: “Kareliya” was followed by “Leonid Brezhnev”, and then the ship was called “Kareliya” again for almost ten years. The vessel was subsequently known as “Olvia”, then Neptune, CT Neptune, Neptune again and now “Starry Metropolis”.

A total of five ships in the Belorussija Class were completed at the finnish shipyard, today MEYER TURKU, and delivered to the former Black Sea Shipping Company from 1975 to 1976. The prototype was Belorussija, and the other vessels were also named after constituent states of the USSR: Azerbaydzhan, Kazakhstan, Gruziya and Kareliya. All the structurally identical ships were originally built as ferries. They could transport almost 900 passengers and around 250 vehicles. The Russian sister ships were then converted into cruise liners following the dissolution of the USSR.

The vessel formerly known as “Kareliya” has been used for casino cruises in Hong Kong since 2004.