No one is surprised by flyers that include photos of a random dog or cat that has disappeared alongside a contact number. It happens. But for a ship to disappear completely in this day and age is certainly something extraordinary. And not just any ship, a humble fishing trawler or a small sailboat, but a passenger cruise liner... that disappeared on its own.
That's exactly what happened to the ``Lyubov Orlova``, a Russian cruise ship back in 2013.
Built in Yugoslavia in 1976 as one of eight identical ``Mariya Yermolova`` class passenger ships built for the USSR under an alleged agreement between Tito and Brezhnev to help the South Slavic shipbuilding industry, this ship specialized in cruises around Antarctica, the least anthropophilic continent of all. The ``Lyubov Orlova`` was not named as it was due to some post-Soviet shipping company's erotomaniac obsession with eagles. Not even with falcons or hawks. It was simply about Stalin's favorite film diva, Lyubov Petrovna Orlova, the Bolshevik counterpart to Marlene Dietrich and Hedy Lamarr.
The ship ended its career in 2012 and was towed to the Dominican Republic where it was to be cut into pieces. Arnaud, however, broke away from the tugboat that was towing it to its final port and gained a mind of its own. Since it did not like to end up recycled, it fled across the Atlantic and since there was no active GPS device on it and it was not difficult for it to disappear...It was last seen in January 2014 not far from Ireland.
Speculations spoke of rats on the ship who suddenly found themselves on a luxury cruise and who, after eating everything that could be eaten even by a rat - faced with hunger, turned on themselves and a rodent cannibalistic ball began. The source of this information, which appeared in the British tabloids, is unknown, as is the source of the distress signals received from the ship, from a radio device designed exclusively for that purpose - and this long after the disappearance. Rats are adaptable creatures, but it is too much to expect them to evolve into radio operators in such a short time. Another possibility is that (because the ship was hanging around Ireland), the `Lyubov Orlova` was kidnapped by Leprechauns who took the ship to Tir-na-Nog, the `paradise` according to Celtic pagan mythology.
Leprechauns aside, it remains unclear what combination of incompetence, stupidity and mystical circumstances allowed a 5,000-ton ship to disappear sailing across the Atlantic, without propulsion, without fuel, without navigation and without people on board, in full view of the local navies and coastguards. Sea currents are powerful, but not so powerful as to hide an entire steel monster from view.
Apparently the sea remains the final frontier and `Lyubov Orlova` a post-modernist variant of `Marie Celeste`.
(Roger Mortis, 091)
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