Igor Mikhaltsev, the chief designer of the Mir submersibles, joined Russia Today to give some more details about the unique vessels.

Igor Mikhaltsev: The Soviet Union and the Russian Federation are practically leaders of building, creating the Mir submersibles, Mi-1 and Mir-2 – two unique submersibles that are very important for many tasks. I've written the technical specification and have made eight principally new technical decisions in specifications. Eight new decisions were used in these two subs – something that had never before been realised by the industry of the world. I hope you've seen 'Titanic' by James Cameron. When he was presenting this movie in Moscow he said that this movie would have never been created if he hadn't seen two submersibles – Mir-1 and Mir-2- and hadn't come down in one of them. And he decided that it was a new era for creating underwater movies.