MOSCOW, September 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russia’s Kruzenshtern sailing ship is returning to her home port in Kaliningrad, after visiting the German port where she was first launched, a spokeswoman for the ship said on Wednesday.

The trip to Bremerhaven, where the Kruzenshtern was built in 1926, was part of the vessel’s third journey to circumnavigate the globe. Since April, when the current expedition began, the ship has covered 13,700 nautical miles, and visited seven countries and 12 ports.

Tatyana Babushkina said local authorities in Bremerhaven “presented to the Kruzenshtern captain, Mikhail Novikov, an official invitation to take part in the International Nautical Festival Sail Bremerhafen 2010, which is to take place in August 2010.”

The Kruzenshtern, one of the world’s largest sailing ships, left Kaliningrad on April 19 for the International Trans-Atlantic Expedition, dedicated to the 65th anniversary of Soviet Union’s victory in the Great Patriotic War.

The ship is nearing the end of the first stage of the expedition, and is expected to arrive in Kaliningrad on September 4.

During the second stage, set to run from September 25 to April 2010, the Kruzenshtern will visit Latin America.

The vessel was given to the Soviet Union in 1946 as part of World War II reparations, and was renamed after a Russian admiral of German descent, Johann Krusenstern (1770-1846), who performed Russia’s first circumnavigation. Since the 1970s the ship has been used as a training vessel for naval cadets.

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