The ship was given back her original Estonian name and was extensively renovated; Suur Tõll, the largest preserved pre-war icebreaker in the world, is currently moored at Lennusadam, the historical seaplane harbour in Tallinn.

In 1912, the Imperial Russian government organized a request for tender for the construction of a large steam-powered icebreaker designed specifically for the ice conditions of the Baltic Sea.

The shipbuilding contract was awarded to the German shipyard Stettiner Maschinenbau AG Vulcan and the vessel, christened Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich (Царь Михаилъ Ѳеодоровичъ) after Michael of Russia, was ready for launching on 26 December 1913.

During the war, the icebreaker operated in the Gulf of Finland, where she carried troops and material, and escorted transportation vessels between Tallinn and Helsinki.

When the icebreaker passed the lighthouse of Harmaja, the men broke into the ship's weapons storage and shortly afterwards the Russian crew of 116, half of them armed guards, had been taken into custody.

In the evening Volynets, flying the Finnish flag under the command of Segersven, arrived in Tallinn, where she was welcomed by a group of high-ranking German officers, including Prince Henry of Prussia.

[6] In September 1919 she was drydocked in Suomenlinna, but while the repair work was completed in late October, she could not leave the shipyard until 24 November due to her deep draft and the particularly low sea level.

As a result, the Finnish Board of Navigation decided to order a large icebreaker based on her basic design and the experiences gained during her operation.

[9] When Finland signed the Treaty of Tartu on 14 October 1920, it had agreed to return the Russian icebreakers seized by the Finnish White Guard during the Civil War.

[8] During the era of Estonian independence in the 1920s and 1930s, she assisted ships mainly outside Tallinn in the southern Gulf of Finland, but sometimes sailed as far south as the coast of Lithuania.

[2] In the 1920s, Estonia did not possess a dry dock large enough to accommodate the 3,619-ton Suur Tõll and as a result the icebreaker was drydocked in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1923.

In 1927, the shipyard replaced Suur Tõll's old boilers with new ones purchased from Vulcan and heightened the bridge by one deck to improve visibility over the bow.

On 27–29 August 1941, she participated in the evacuation of Tallinn, joining the convoy led by Soviet cruiser Kirov while carrying 980 passengers and hundreds of tons of military supplies.

Although the convoy suffered heavy losses — over half of the 67 civilian ships were destroyed and around 6,000 people died — Volynets, steaming in front of Kirov, managed to evade the bombs dropped at it and arrived in Kronstadt unharmed.

Equipped with large pumps and extensive fire-fighting outfit, the old icebreaker was stationed at the shipyard where the Red Fleet demolished its old warships.

[3] While the original piano was destroyed in the First World War, the current musical instrument is from the same manufacturer and dates back to the early 20th century.

While Suur Tõll has not moved under her own power since 1994, the Estonian Maritime Museum intends to return her boilers and steam engines to operational status.

[2] Suur Tõll is the largest preserved pre-war steam-powered icebreaker in the world,[4] bigger than both the Finnish Tarmo and the Swedish Sankt Erik.

Her hull, strengthened by a cast iron stem and a large number of longitudinal and transverse bulkheads, is surrounded by an ice belt with a width of 2 metres (6.6 ft) and thickness of one inch (25 mm).

To assist icebreaking in difficult conditions she is also equipped with heeling tanks and pumps capable of transferring 570 tons of water from one side to another in ten minutes, listing the ship by 10 degrees.

Furthermore, she had an electrical salvage pump that could be transported to a grounded ship in a boat or on a sledge over ice without bringing the icebreaker too close to the shallow waters.