21,406 GRT, loa 185m, 929 passengers. Best known for the cruise service she performed for 20 years when chartered by her Russian owners to German operator Phoenix Reisen from 1988 – 2008, this handsome vessel had originally been planned as a liner/ cruise ship by the company who ordered her from Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft, Hamburg. she was used solely for cruising as ss Hamburg, but was renamed in 1973 to Hanseatic. In 1974 her owners who had been hit by the oil crisis were forced to sell her to a New York firm Robin Int who immediately resold her to the Soviet Union, the Black Sea Shipping Cy. They used her for cruising for 4 years before chartering her to Phoenix Reisen until 2008. In 2008, she was acquired by Orient Lines, which had plans for a come back in the cruise industry operating Maxim Gorkiy as Marco Polo II. However these plans dit not materialize as the level of bookings remained low because of the economic crisis at the time. Instead, Maxim Gorkiy was sold to Indian scrappers in January 2009 and was beached in Alang, India two months later.

73 photographs, made in 2006 during a ship visit in Bremerhaven.