Black Sea Shipping Company

The company can trace its history to 16 May 1833, when the Black Sea Society of Steamships (ROPiT) was established as means of permanent communications between Odessa and Istanbul, but the company disappeared after the Crimean War of the 1850s. The company was re-established on 13 June 1922 as Black Sea - Azov Sea Shipping by the Council of Labour and Defence as part of the People's Commissariat of Communication Routes and administered by the Central Administration of State Merchant Fleet (Gostorgflot). The Black Sea - Azov Sea Shipping company split into Black Sea Shipping Company, Azov Sea Shipping Company and Georgian Shipping Company after World War II. Another split took place in 1964 when a new company, Novorossiysk Shipping Company, was created from the tanker division of the Black Sea Shipping Company.

Azov Sea region management of Black Sea Shipping Company was created in Mariupol (then known as Zhdanov) in 1953. Azov Sea region management was reorganized in Azov Sea Shipping Company in 1967. It is why some ships of Black Sea Shipping Company ships were handed over changed to Azov Sea Shipping Company and home port was changed from Odesa to Mariupol. So, two sister ships Nezhin and Smela were transferred to Azov Sea Shipping Company in 1969 or in 1967.

In 1990, Black Sea Shipping was the biggest one in Europe among other shipping companies and the second in whole world. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the company was passed from the Ministry of Sea Fleet of the Soviet Union as a state company of Ukraine and later registered with the State Property Fund of Ukraine.

On 13 August 1993, President Leonid Kravchuk issued the Decree #303, creating the state conglomeration "Blasko" based on "Black Sea Shipping Company". The Decree was canceled in January 1995.

Speaking in 2013, Kravchuk accepted his blame for decisions leading to ruining of the "Black Sea Shipping Company".

Fleet

Black Sea Shipping company was the biggest company in the world in the 1980s as per quantity of sea-going vessels. The company had more than 250 sea-going ships during the best times.

Ports and harbours of operation

During the Soviet Union period and after the creation of the Novorossiysk Sea Shipping Company all of the large ports on the present Ukrainian territory except Sevastopol, Asov Sea ports, Kerch port and Danube river ports were owned and administered by the Black Sea Shipping Company. After the collapse of the Soviet Union these ports separated from the shipping company.

Ports of Black Sea Shipping Co. during Soviet Union period:

Constellation of the Black Sea basin (by analogy with the word Mediterranean):