July 8, 2016 the icebreaker took on board in the port of Vladivostok the first passengers and the staff. The icebreaker took the majority of foreign tourists on July 14, 2016 in the Chukchi port of Anadyr. «Kapitan Khlebnikov» passed from Anadyr through the Russian sector of the Arctic to Murmansk. On this route tourists visited the islands of Kolyuchin, Wrangel, Ayon, New Siberian Islands and Bear Islands, Novaya Zemlya. In Norwegian port of Longyearbyen there was a change of passengers, and «Kapitan Khlebnikov» headed for Greenland. First, the icebreaker doubled Greenland on the
Referring to the Captain of the icebreaker Vladimir Boldakov: «12 passengers made with us a full circle around the polar cap. Approaching to Anadyr they were allowed to operate the icebreaker and trusted to stand up on the steering wheel. The passengers were delighted not only by the fact that they were on the steering wheel, but what a curve wake it turned out!»
During this cruise the tourists watched the unique wildlife — polar bears, arctic birds, walruses, seals. The passengers were disembarked on glaciers by helicopters or motorized rubber boats.
FESCO icebreaker «Kapitan Khlebnikov» has been making tourist voyages since 1992: in winter period there are trips to Antarctica with port calls to Argentina and New Zealand, in the summer — to the Arctic. The development of this special world tourism industry has given tourists an exceptional opportunity to see extraordinary unique beauty of the polar regions, which are icebounded most of the year and create insurmountable obstacles to navigation of merchant and passenger ships.