Olympic Flame [Tadzhikistan, Chang Sheng]

[Henry Casciaro]

Can anyone tell me more about this interesting vessel, which seemed to be sailing the Greek Islands during the late 80's. I have taken this photo from Shipspotting and I know she was the former Soviet Tadzhikistan which came from a class of 7 vessels of 3,219 gt built in the late 50's early 60's for local services in the Black and Caspian Seas.

She is also a sister of Odessa Sun which also had Greek connections and was used for charter cruising around Greece at about the same time. I have quite a few original photos and brochures on the Odessa Sun but nothing on the Olympic Flame.......any idea if there was any connection to the Olympic Games (although this did'nt take place in Greece until 2004!)

It would be interesting to find out more
Henry.

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copyrights Goran Olsson

[Henry Casciaro]

Have jut realised I should not have posted this photo from Shipspotting as it has copywrite (Goran Olsson) and I do not have permission.

However this was purely done for informative reasons as I wanted to identify the ship to Nautilia members. If our moderators or administrators feel it should be removed by all means do so.

Thanks and regards, Henry.:sad:

[Ellinis]

Henry, the OLYMPIC FLAME was bought in 1989 by Trohidis, a Greek-Cypriot that also owned Afroessa Lines, and was briefly named PORTO LEONE, but renamed during conversion to "connect" to the efforts that were underway back then to bring the 1996 Olympic games to Athens. They were promoted as the "Golden Olympics", and would occur in Athens 100 years after the 1896 games, but they went to the capital of Coca-Cola :(
She sailed for a season and was sold in October to chinese interests. Last time I read about her, she was mentioned as laid up since 2004.

Trohidis had big plans to use former Soviet ships in Mediterranean cruising. He managed to convert ODESSA SUN ex-Uzbekistan and ODESSA SONG ex-Bashkiria but his plans for ODESSA DREAM ex-Armeniya and ODESSA SPRING ex-Adzhariya never materialized.
Odessa Cruises collapsed in 1996/97.

Here is a picture of her, from her presentation to the local press. If you are interested, there are some interior photos that I could post.

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[Henry Casciaro]

Aris as usual you are a wealth of knowledge. Thanks for the information, she seemed a very colourful ship! Those interior pics would be great to see. I also have some good original photos of the Odessa Sun and Song which I obtained from the Odessa Cruise Hellas office on one of my visits to Piraeus many years ago.
I will upload these to continue the thread.

They were sleek, smart looking former coastal ferries and good material for conversion at the time, even though the Odessa Sun did not have a pool. Even so she apparently did a season of Greek Island cruises from Ancona during summer 1993 marketed to the Dutch,Belgian and German markets. I will upload the brochure and some photos tomorrow.

Cheers
Henry.

[Ship's Agent]

Dear Friends

My sincere thank you for posting info about Olympic Cruises and it's ships.

Simply superb and precious info.

[Ellinis]

I will scan the interior photos tomorrow. To make up for the delay, here is a photo I took a little while before she sailed for the Far East.

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[Ellinis]

Here is a shot of the dining room. I though I had more internal shots but I was wrong.
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However I found another exterior and I uploaded a better scan of the previous one.

In the small photo you can see the details of her funnel logo. Except of the four olympic cycles there is the discobolus of Myron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discobolus).

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[Henry Casciaro]

Here are two good shots of Olympic Flame taken at Kusadasi by Tony Garner, courtesy of Shipspotting

Although long and narrow, with a low superstructure she was an attractive ship in a strange sort of way or maybe it was her stylised livery that gave her that special look!

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