 In 1959, the Soviets began a massive expansion of their whaling industry, probably due to their desire to become a larger player in the global whale products market (and because the Seventh Five-Year Plan called for greater reliance on natural resources).In November of 1959 the "Sovetskaya Ukraina", the first of these new ships (and at almost 50,000 tons the largest factory ship ever built along with its sister ship) left Odessa to begin Antarctic whaling, followed soon after by the "Slava".In October 1960 a converted passenger liner named "Yuriy Dolgorukiy" set sail from Kaliningrad to join the others, and in autumn 1961, "Sovetskaya Rossiya" set sail from Vladivostok to the Antarctic.