Russia's "Nadezhda" sailing ship leaves Nagasaki for South Korea

The Russian training sailing vessel "Nadezhda", which is on a circumnavigatory voyage, has left the Japanese port of Nagasaki on Thursday and headed for South Korea.

The vessel is expected to arrive in Pusan, South Korea, on March 20 to spend 4 days there, Vladivostok's State Maritime University told RIA Novosti.

Pusan will be the last stopover in a foreign post for the vessel, which is due to return to Vladivostok, its port of registration, on March 28.

On February 18, Nadezhda passed Vladivostok's longitude and thereby made a full circle around Earth. This is the vessel's fourth circumnavigatory voyage.

Nadezhda, which belongs to the Admiral Nevelsky Maritime State University, set off on the voyage on January 25, 2003.

It is devoted to the 200th anniversary of the first circumnavigatory voyage made by the Russian sailors Ivan Kruzenshtern and Yury Lisyansky on the Nadezhda and Neva sloops.

The current itinerary is almost identical to that of the historical voyage.

A team of researchers, who are studying environmental problems and processes in the world ocean, are taking part in the voyage, apart from the crew and cadets.

The vessel visited St. Petersburg than went further on via the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the Suez Canal and the Atlantic, which was the first phase of the voyage.

After taking part in Petersburg's tercentenary celebrations last summer, Nadezhda visited Britain, the Canary Islands, Brazil, the Falkland Islands, Chile, Tahiti, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Nagasaki.