Diana Kidzhi, a 27-year-old female chief mate, is breaking stereotypes in a male-dominated profession as she leads Russia's nuclear-powered icebreaker ship through the Arctic
During four-hour shifts in the morning and evening, Kidzhi is in charge of the ship's heading as it sails through the Arctic for four months at a time.As a child, she dreamed of working at sea.
Initially, she wanted to join the Russian navy. But while Saint Petersburg's Naval Institute was closed to women, another maritime university specialising in commercial shipping opened a course to women students just as she finished school. "I took it as a sign. What's the point of knocking on a closed door when a path opens up in front of you," she says.
Shortly after graduating, she was invited to join an icebreaker fleet, "immediately falling in love".She thrives on the "force you can feel" while operating the ship, which she says is incomparable to a diesel-powered vessel. She quickly rose through the ranks on the icebreakers and has since sailed around the Arctic dozens of times and made nine voyages to the North Pole.Kidzhi admits that when she first joined the ship, the crew looked at her with suspicion."There are strong opponents of having a woman as part of the fleet. There is a feeling that a woman on a ship is bad luck," he says.
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