Black Sea Shipyard Viktor Konstantinovich. Black Sea Shipyard
In 1794, the first ship, the frigate "St. Nicholas", was launched from the shipyard of the Nikolaev Admiralty. Since then, the city began to turn into a shipping center of the Russian Empire. The Black Sea Admiralty Directorate was transferred here, and a school of naval architecture was founded.
In Soviet times, the Admiralty shipyard was replaced by three huge shipyards - Chernomorsky, "Ocean" and named after 61 Communards. They produced transport and research vessels, fishing trawlers, missile boats and aircraft carriers. All Soviet aircraft-carrying cruisers, including the last remaining Russian aircraft, Admiral Kuznetsov, were built in Nikolaev at the Black Sea Shipyard.
Now it’s quiet in Nikolaev. The factories are standing still. Their owners and management, judging by local newspapers, change once a year, and not without raider takeovers and attempts at bankruptcy. The staff of each enterprise was reduced by 10-20 times. Equipment and parts for ships - and the factories had huge warehouses - have been regularly sold for the last 20 years at the price of scrap metal. The outfitting deck for aircraft carriers was turned into a granary.
They didn’t let me into any of the factories. Their leaders refused to meet with me. Some referred to crazy busyness, while others explained directly: no one wants to wash their dirty linen in public.
The official position is this: a little more - and orders will come, factories will start working, and happiness will return. In fact, former specialists have retired, moved away, or become drunkards. In the city there are unlit courtyards, terrible roads, and sewer manholes have been stolen for scrap metal - some sewers are covered with concrete blocks, and some remain traps for pedestrians and drivers. The only reminders of the glorious past are the building slipway of the Black Sea Plant, where aircraft carriers were built, towering above the city, and the unfinished flagship of the Ukrainian fleet, the cruiser "Ukraine", standing at the berth of the Plant named after 61 Communards for 20 years (now, however, they say it has been stripped of its name).
Three specialists agreed to talk to me about what happened and what happened to shipbuilding in Nikolaev. One, Yuri Kamenetsky, headed the Chernomorsudoproekt design bureau in Soviet times; another, Valery Babich, oversaw the construction of aircraft carriers at the Black Sea plant; the third, Viktor Azhishchev, was involved in production automation at the Center Research Institute. Now none of them work in their specialty.
Yuri Kamenetsky grew up in Dnepropetrovsk, in his childhood - immediately after the war - he was friends with the son of the then first secretary of the regional party committee Leonid Brezhnev, and went in for sailing. “I was crazy on ships,” he recalls. That’s why I went to study shipbuilding in Nikolaev. He worked at the Chernomorsky plant since the late 50s; for a quarter of a century he was the chief engineer and director of the Chernomorsudoproekt design bureau. Among his projects are ships of the Vitus Bering type (a hybrid of a transport ship and an icebreaker), Project 10200 helicopter carriers (the ship was supposed to resemble the notorious Mistral), and the space communications ship Akademik Sergei Korolev (for the lunar program).
Tale from Yuri KamenetskyFor example, we built lighter carriers. These are vessels with large floating containers - lighters. Why did they start building? Because this class appeared in the West. And the truth is that it’s a great idea: the ship carries floating containers for 500 tons of cargo. Each of them is waterproof - you can carry whatever you want in it, even computers. And on the ship itself, the lighter carrier only needs a 600-ton crane that can move around the deck to move, pick up and unload these lighters.
What is the idea of lighter transportation? Let’s say there is a port somewhere, in America. They gather the lighters there, load them and wait. A lighter carrier arrives from Europe with the same containers loaded for America. He dumps them, American lighters immediately bring them to the ship, he takes them and leaves. Twenty minutes cycle for loading or unloading each lighter. The parking time is like that of a tanker - a day, taking into account all sorts of paperwork - two. Then the ship sailed across the ocean and brought these lighters somewhere to Rotterdam. They were dismantled there by tugboats and distributed along canals and rivers wherever needed. Everything is great, great! But it all needs to work like clockwork.
And we built (the first Soviet lighter carrier was called "Alexei Kosygin")- So what? We decided: let's go to the Far East. They say that on the coast up to Kolyma there are many places where there is no pier - an ordinary ship cannot approach there. We will dump the lighter, a tug will come for it, pull it somewhere, unload it there, and on the way back the lighter carrier will pick up the empty containers. He is on his way back - and nothing has been unloaded there. Why? “And we have one car faucet. And you can’t open the hatch without it. It broke, and Uncle Vasya started drinking.” And this is our whole system. What to do? The ship is empty. So they built a lighter carrier for you.
But it would be nice to cancel this program - no, it’s no longer possible, we’re building a second one. In general, these lighter carriers were given to the Black Sea Shipping Company, and it delivered them to Vietnam. On the second ship - it was called "Indira Gandhi" - my captain was a close friend. In Vietnam, as he said, there was some kind of big river, along which the lighters had to pull away. They arrived, threw them off, sailed away, returned - there were already people living on these lighters with huts. Savages! And again there was no cargo flow."
"Kosygin" was recently sold to America, now it is called Atlantic Forest. And Russia has only one lighter carrier left, the Sevmorput.
Despite all the shortcomings associated with a planned economy, Kamenetsky considers Soviet shipbuilding to be quite competitive. It was part of the country's unified industrial complex and essentially worked as a closed system. All components were produced domestically.
Photo courtesy of Valery Babich
Thanks to its low cost, Sudoimport sold Soviet ships on the world market at prices reduced by 20-30 percent (Kamenetsky’s approximate estimate). The state received hard currency from this, and the manufacturing plant received small royalties, which could be used to buy, for example, buses or calculators. It was possible to purchase more of the same calculators than needed, give the extra ones to the regional committee - and then have a good relationship with it.
There was something outlandish, blatantly unnatural in all this: they built some ships that no one needed, from not the highest quality components, sold them at any price, and no one, in general, was interested in reducing costs , nor in improving quality - why, when it all seems to be working? In a competitive environment, such enterprises collapsed instantly.
Another tale from Yuri KamenetskyThe West came to electronic document management - from the delivery project - back in the late 70s. For us, it somehow worked by the end of the 80s. However, they had full-fledged systems that included logistics and accounting. And we... We had a meeting - the deputy minister gathered the chief engineers of the Central Design Bureau and factories. There was a certain Serbin who was responsible for automation. Shaposhnikov asks him:
Serbin, tell me where we are compared to abroad?
Evgeniy Nikolaevich, I must tell you that methodologically we are ahead.
He jumped up:
Fuck your mother, you will drive me into a coffin with your “methodology”! I'm tired of listening to this! Methodically it’s higher, but otherwise it’s in the ass!
At the Research Institute "Center", which was engaged in the automation of design work, logistics and production, 1200 people worked in Soviet times, and 15 people worked on the latest project in 2009. Now the work has stopped completely, the equipment is standing still, the developments lie unclaimed. The lead programmer has been sitting at the entrance as a security guard for the second year.
Photo courtesy of Valery Babich
Valery Babich, who participated in the creation of all Soviet aircraft carriers, now admits with a sigh that this entire program is rather controversial. Strictly speaking, these ships - "Kyiv", "Minsk", "Novorossiysk", "Admiral Gorshkov", "Admiral Kuznetsov" - are not aircraft carriers, but heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers, which, firstly, are much smaller than "real" American aircraft carriers ( in terms of displacement - twice as much), and secondly, they were much more seriously armed.
In the USSR back in the 70s there were two projects for a full-fledged aircraft carrier - 1160 and 1153 (both of them were called “Eagle”). The Nevsky Design Bureau was ready to complete this project, the Black Sea Plant was ready to build this ship, but Ustinov, the then Minister of Defense, considered that we should compete with the Americans in a different way. These ships, he considered, would be too long and difficult to build. Therefore, it was decided instead to create “small” aircraft carriers with Yak aircraft for vertical or short takeoff and landing.
It turned out that these aircraft, which spent a huge amount of fuel on takeoff, were inferior to the usual MiGs and Su in both range and payload capacity. That is, they actually could not solve combat missions. And, of course, it was necessary, says Babich, as soon as it became clear, to reorient and make a ship for deck versions of the Su-27 and MiG-29. Ustinov made this decision only two years before his death. Then in Nikolaev they began to build the current flagship of the Russian fleet, Admiral Kuznetsov, and then laid down the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk, which never left the slipway. According to a similar project, the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov is being rebuilt in Russia, which in a year should enter the Indian fleet under the name Vikramaditya.
Photo courtesy of Valery Babich
Making the right decisions, says Babich, is much easier when work is not carried out within the framework of a planned system, but there is competition. For example, in the USA, when the military sets a task, projects are prepared by several design bureaus at once. And by spending money on “extra” developments, the government gets a really good result.
When the Union collapsed, Russia fully paid for all the ships that were built at the Black Sea plant. At that time, the aircraft carrier Varyag was being completed, the nuclear-powered Ulyanovsk was on the slipway, and the floating base for Project 2020 nuclear boats was also being completed.
Russia not only paid for everything, but also covered the costs, taking into account inflationary losses, which by that time amounted to 100 million rubles. At the same time, Ukraine was negotiating with the Norwegians to build for them several Panamax tankers (the so-called ships with the largest dimensions capable of passing through the Panama Canal). In order to fulfill the “Norwegian” contract on time, the plant needed to vacate two slipways - on one of them the Ulyanovsk hull stood.
They asked Russia about what to do with the ship, but there was no answer. Well, literally within a month the decision was made to cut it into metal. Moreover, the technologists considered that both in terms of money and time (nine months), completing the construction of the aircraft carrier to the point where it could be launched and mothballed would be the same as when sawing.
After Ulyanovsk was cut up, they could not sell the metal for four years - at that time there was an abundance of scrap in the former republics of the USSR. And the Norwegians, for whose sake the slipway was vacated, disappeared along with the contracts. There are even rumors that the destruction of the aircraft carrier was a sabotage by Western intelligence services.
The predecessor of Ulyanovsk, Varyag, was sold unfinished to China for $20 million. They say they could have sold it for much more if they had managed to truly mothball it in the 90s. In fact, the aircraft carrier was plundered.
"Ulyanovsk", by the way, became the last ship to be built on the huge "zero" slipway of the Black Sea plant. Since then the slipway has been idle. Putting it into operation, if necessary, will be very difficult - the unique wooden skids on which the ships were launched have been lost. The official reason is rotten. The old-timers of the plant don’t really believe in this - they say that they did everything to preserve this high-quality wood for many years.
Photo courtesy of Valery Babich
Having aircraft carriers is, of course, very important for prestige and international influence: it’s one thing when someone in the Kremlin says something about the situation in Libya or Syria, and quite another thing when an aircraft carrier group enters the Mediterranean Sea and how they say, “resolves issues.”
Tale from Valery BabichWhen we finished building the aircraft carriers, I suggested to Makarov, the director of the plant: “Let’s work on cruise ships.” A tanker costs 40 million dollars, and such a vessel costs 700 or 800. And they are for sale! But in the Soviet Union we had a problem finding some kind of nickel-plated door handles. And without such things you can’t make a cruise ship...
Although there are stories with a happy ending. For example, businessman Kakha Bendukidze, who later went to work for the Georgian government, bought the Sevastopol Central Design Bureau "Coral". There they worked on floating drilling rigs for offshore oil production. Bendukidze bought a similar bureau in America - and ensured the flow of knowledge and the establishment of connections with suppliers. Ukrainian production ultimately survived in a very difficult time for the country, when $100 was considered a big salary, and personnel scattered in all directions.
When asked whether it is possible to completely restore Nikolaev shipbuilding, experts unanimously answer: no. Somehow, medium-tonnage shipbuilding continues to survive, where everything is not so complicated with equipment and automation. But in Ukraine this is only 20 percent of the industry. According to Yuri Kamenetsky, Ukraine can catch up with itself in 1985 in the field of advanced large shipbuilding in five years. But this, firstly, will require gigantic cash injections, and secondly, the world will move even further forward during this time.
Photo courtesy of Valery Babich
For the sake of reviving jobs, it would make sense to repurpose factories for the production of some other large-sized metal products, for example, blades for wind generators. Factory embankments can be turned into ports, empty workshops into warehouses.
Deputy director of the Research Institute "Center" Viktor Azhishchev speaks with poorly concealed rage about such repurposing - a supermarket of building materials "33 square meters" was opened in the former workshop of the welding systems plant. Every new owner, having rented out something or opened a store, says: “Guys, I created 20 jobs here.” But there were 2 thousand there! And they all closed...
About the plant named after 61 Kommunard, where ships of 1st and 2nd ranks were built for the Soviet Navy, I. By the way, he also built the battleship “Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky”. But there is a much more unique plant in Nikolaev - a kind of shipbuilding "Uralmash", a "factory of factories" for the fleet. And not only military, but also research, trade, and fishing.
This - Black Sea Shipyard(ChSZ). At different times he bore other names - “Naval”, named after. Andre Marty, named after Nosenko, while remaining one of the two largest factories in the Empire, and then the USSR, for the construction of the fleet. The biography of the plant for 95 active years (1897-1992), which the fickle muse Clio gave him, is simply amazing, from the dreadnoughts of the Russian Empire to the nuclear aircraft carrier cut up on the slipway, so at the end of the post I will briefly outline it.
This story will be even sadder than about the plant named after 61 Kommunard, so don’t blame it.
"Welding" mosaic and anchor at the entrance to ChSZ behind the plant management
Well? Let's take the Nikolaevsky, barely breathing, old tram and leisurely ride along the sleepy streets in a southerly direction, closer to the Bugsky Estuary. There will be that very unique place that interests us.
1. But first of all - the map. This is how ChSZ is localized in Nikolaev. According to my rough estimates, it occupies approximately 15% of the city's territory (dense buildings). The plant is huge. Inclined slipway "0", which is marked with a separate arrow, is the same complex on which the hulls of aircraft carriers were formed, from the first sign of the Krechet project - "Kyiv" to the unfinished nuclear-powered "Ulyanovsk". In general, the plant was huge and multi-disciplinary - the “military” part of its production during the USSR occupied about 40%, the rest was civilian and research vessels.
The red arrows are our approach to the plant. The first two, to the right, are an unsuccessful attempt. Not knowing the exact passage from the tram stop, they went the wrong way, passing the ring and the buildings of Korabelka, and ran into a line and a continuous fence. The second attempt was successful, we hit the spot - these are two red arrows to the left, and we went straight to the slipway "0".
To be honest, I wasn’t very lucky that day in Nikolaev. Firstly, we drove from Odessa in the morning on a terribly broken road, and about 70% of the way we weaved between holes in the asphalt at about 35-40 km/h, and we inhaled dust, too. From the border of the Odessa region it was a really scary road, like after a bombing (I will show an avi clip later). Secondly, somewhere around lunch, after inspecting the pontoon bridge with a view of the rusting cruiser "Ukraine", going up the stairs, I awkwardly twisted my leg and after a while it began to annoy me. In addition, we could not find an acceptable eatery for a snack - either there was nothing along the way, or some restaurant with an absurd markup, and most importantly, with a long waiting period. We reached the tram ring, I sat down to catch my breath, unable to keep up the pace with my sprained leg, and there Bosun Zeleny went down to the river station and the Southern Bug alone, without me.
Trams in Nikolaev barely breathe, and they also barely run, rarely. We missed the direct tram, not understanding where the stop was, and got screwed. I suggested taking a minibus, but the boatswain wanted to take a tram, as a matter of principle, so we walked along the tram route, and after 4 stops the next one took us towards ChSZ.
In general, we got off at the factory stop, having lost almost an hour from the total time balance. There the jambs continued: at first we went in the wrong direction (the plant is huge), and realized our mistake after 20-25 minutes, running into fences and a line. We had to go back and try the second option, which turned out to be successful and led us straight to the cyclopean cranes of the “Zero” slipway.
Now, a little about our path to ChSZ, in photographs.
2. Here we are going in the wrong direction (but we don’t know it yet). This is a pre-revolutionary tram ring - it was built to the Naval plant (now ChSZ) back in 1915. The houses are stone, also from that period - pre-revolutionary.
3. We go to the south.
4. Over there on the horizon on the right, the megacranes of slipway 0 appeared (they are the absolute landmark and dominant feature here), but you can’t get to them. The road goes left. So we're going to the wrong place.
5. We pass along some factory street, with a rather gloomy aura.
6. The buildings are clearly pre-revolutionary, maybe “Naval” even built them at one time.
7. Dining room upstairs. But there is no time to go and explore - and so much of it has been lost.
8. We turn back and walk along a parallel street, passing by the buildings of the Nikolaev Korabelka (and this is logical - if there is a giant flagship plant, then the shipbuilding institute is not far away).
9. Aha! This is what we need. There is a passage under the line, and the main road, and the megacranes of the Zero slipway are right ahead. I hope you can go far south there.
10. The railway line to the plant runs over the road to ChSZ. Previously, it was multi-track - there was a lot of traffic, but now some of the lines have been removed, and there are only two tracks at the edges.
11. We pass under the viaduct, and ahead on the course we see the ChSZ plant management, built by Brezhnev.
12. A large anchor was installed in front of the plant management to mark the 100th anniversary of the plant (1997). True, by this time the plant had already been in suspended animation for five years.
13. At the end of one of the buildings there are huge orders. Three are Soviet, and one is unknown to me. Maybe Ukrainian.
14. We went to the Coastal Descent. Fortunately, it is not blocked, we go to the slipway. Landmark - mega cranes.
15. One of the entrance gates to the plant, with a mosaic on a welding theme (see the title photo of the post).
16. The same, but a different angle.
17. On the other side are the immediate post-war buildings of service and auxiliary industries.
18. Almost next to the slipway stands a modest white Lenin, possibly a Stalinist post-war building.
19. Now we are approaching the legendary incubator of Soviet aircraft carriers. The building on the right marks the beginning of the slipway proper of several tens of hectares. Although nothing is working here now, those around us are looking attentively at us. I try to shoot more inconspicuously and generally blend into the background.
20. Ahead of the course are colossal gantry cranes the height of a 24-story building (the photo somewhat hides the scale). They are visible several kilometers from the place, in all directions. These cranes and the slipway itself were installed in 1982-83. in preparation for the construction of full-size aircraft-carrying ships. That is, they finished the series of “sub-aircraft carriers” of the “Kyiv” type, then re-equipped the slipway, and the “Admiral Kuznetsov” and “Varyag” (project 1143.5) were already built with these, on new technological equipment. The lifting capacity of the cranes is 900 tons each. Since 1983, aircraft carrier cruisers have been built in large-block modules.
We reached the very end, further there, but there - beyond the fence - I no longer dared to take pictures, for fear of losing what I was filming. Maybe it’s reinsurance, but if we were mistaken for “journalists”, then a showdown and explanations would not be avoided - the plant is now being raided by raiders, the territory is being torn to pieces.
21. Now let's see where we've gotten. Here on Wikipedia there is an untruthful drawing (displaying the slipway itself with the aircraft carrier, and the hulls, and the peninsula in an incorrect and simplified way). But it clearly shows where the path led us (Coaster Descent). So, the cross is the angle in photo No. 20, and the arrows are where we came from. Everything else is wrong :-)
22. But the photo of the same place (inclined slipway "0") is true - a view from above, this is the heyday of the plant, late Soviet times. Please note that everything here is not the same as in the previous Wikipedia photo. Firstly, the peninsula is much larger and longer, and secondly, the slipway itself is divided into two zones. This was done so that a ship more than 300 m long could be built simultaneously, in large modules, and installation carried out in parallel. Nuclear-powered aircraft carrier "Ulyanovsk" in 1989-91. it was mounted on a slipway like this: the main volume, 260 m long, was built on the right half, and its bow, 65 m long, was built next to it, on the left. But these mega-cranes carried out the installation of large-block sections weighing 300-900 tons. Special vehicle trailers transported smaller parts of the aircraft carrier, weighing from 100 to 200 tons, to the assembly site of the modules themselves. Space for such an assembly is reserved on the side of the “nose” construction.
23. This is what slipway “0” looks like from the water. This, however, is already a post-Soviet, “dead” time - some kind of hut was built on the slipway, but the slipway itself is empty, there is no “product”.
24. Another photo of slipway “0”, mid-1980s, with a project 1143.5 product being assembled.
And now it would be correct to tell the biography of this plant, at least briefly. To better understand what kind of system it was, what it did. I will try to concisely, with a dotted line - only the main milestones.
25. ChSZ began in 1896-97. as two different neighboring plants - “Naval” (1897) and the Black Sea Mechanical and Boiler Plant (1896). Moreover, it was “Naval” that had a shipbuilding profile, and therefore the year of foundation of the entire ChSZ is considered to be 1897. The plant was immediately laid down as the main one for the Black Sea Fleet, military and commercial, but it did not immediately acquire its role.
The first major project is equipping the Russian battleships “Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky”, “Zlatoust”, “Eustathius”, as well as the cruiser “Kahul”, the hulls of which were built at the Nikolaev Admiralty (now).
In 1901, independent ship construction began: a series of destroyers was laid down. In 1908, Naval absorbed the neighboring Black Sea plant and became the largest plant in the south of Russia. From this time on, large-scale construction began: underwater minelayers, Novik-class destroyers, mine cruisers. But the milestone was 1911: two dreadnought-class battleships were laid down at the plant. This is the pinnacle of shipbuilding and the center of advanced technologies of that time. In this case, for the sake of fairness, I would defend the Russian Empire: it mastered not only the laying and equipping of the largest plant, the creation of a chain of cooperative ties, but also its rapid transition to the pinnacle of shipbuilding technology, in just 14 years. You can, of course, criticize its social system and politics, but you also cannot forget about such facts.
So, in 1915, the shipyard delivered the dreadnought battleship Empress Catherine the Great to the Imperial Navy. This battleship is notable for the fact that on January 8, 1916, it had an artillery duel with the famous German-Turkish Goeben.
Then - revolution and civil war. It brought the plant its first break in activity (1918-1925).
When the country recovered a little from the revolutionary storms and shed blood, the plant again returned to its purpose, but under a new “revolutionary” name - it. Andre Marty. At first they began to build light ships and civilian vessels, then they moved on to more serious projects - cruisers, destroyer leaders, destroyers, and large-scale construction of submarines. Icebreakers and pontoon sets were also built. And in 1938, after a general reconstruction during the 2nd Five-Year Plan, the battleship "Soviet Ukraine" was laid down at the plant (which was not destined to be completed).
26. Here is one of the plant's "chicks" - the cruiser "Molotov" (1941), which fought in 1941-43.
The war brought a second break in work - from the autumn of 1941 to the summer of 1944. At the same time, it should be especially noted that all valuable technological equipment, unfinished hulls afloat, reserves of ship metal and qualified personnel were evacuated by sea, in parallel with the evacuation of Odessa. Losses during this operation were minimal. The plant stopped working, but the potential remained - which made it possible to quickly resume work in 1945.
The Germans left the plant on March 27, 1944, destroying 95% of the infrastructure and almost all buildings, slipways, workshops and boathouses. In general, a logical decision, because otherwise the enemy would have repaired the damaged Black Sea Fleet ships. The destruction of the plant - paradoxically - helped to rebuild it at a new technological level. It was recreated in a construction sense from scratch, but at the same time retaining its frames, as well as tooling. True, I did not find information on whether reparations and captured equipment influenced the plant, but I must admit that it was revived quickly and already at the end of 1945 began to work at full capacity.
After the war, the plant was recreated and became a multi-functional "plant of factories" of ships, surpassing all three Leningrad "brothers" in scale. The longest period of its heyday begins (1945-1991). At this time, he is building not only a military base, but also much more - icebreakers, tugboats, whaling bases, dry cargo ships, research vessels, floating bases and missile reloaders, submarine bases, floating workshops, supertrawlers-fish carriers, BMRT, vessels for marine research bottom, tankers, bulk carriers. During the Soviet post-war period, more than half a thousand (!) ships were built to equip the commercial, research and fishing fleets of the USSR. Medium-tonnage vessels were built on a production line, like a conveyor. Docks for other factories, pontoons and the aircraft carrier test complex "Nitka" were also built.
27. However, the brightest page of the plant was the construction of aircraft-carrying ships for the ocean-going fleet of the Soviet Union.
At the same time, the plant gradually moved towards complexity, mastering and accumulating more and more complex technologies and the most valuable thing - experience. First, a pair of Project 1123 helicopter carriers ("Moscow" and "Leningrad") were built, then they moved on to the construction of larger carriers - aircraft-carrying cruisers of the "Kyiv" type, Project 1143.
1971 Launching of the TAKR "Kyiv".
28. “Product” of a plant at sea (TAKR “Kyiv”). Second half of the 1970s.
29. Here are two more interesting photos from the biography of ChSZ (signatures in the frame).
30. Delivery of the next TAKR to the fleet - "Novorossiysk" (in the background stands the unfinished "Baku", now "Gorshkov", sold in 2001 to the Indians, but still not re-equipped).
In the early 1980s, slipway "0" was re-equipped at a new level and the next, more complex stage began - the construction of aircraft carriers based on full-fledged aircraft (project 1143.5), and not vertical take-off, as on the "Kyiv" type. Two hulls were laid down, one of them was successfully completed and delivered to the fleet (Admiral Kuznetsov), and the second - Varyag - was not completed before the collapse of the USSR. On January 1, 1992, he was already at the outfitting wall, 75% ready, but alas.
31. Product of the plant ("Admiral Kuznetsov") at sea.
32. In 1988, the plant moved to the next level of complexity - the accumulated experience and design cooperation with the Nevsky Central Design Bureau (Leningrad) made it possible to move on to the construction of a full-size heavy aircraft carrier, without any "buts" - the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier "Ulyanovsk" (project 1143.7) was laid down. . Displacement, according to various sources, from 74,000 to 85,000 tons, four reactors, backup diesel engines, an air wing of 70-72 aircraft, including AWACS aircraft. It was already a full-fledged leader and the core of a naval strike group, comparable to the Nimitz class. The ship was scheduled to be commissioned in November 1995.
33. Before January 1, 1992, "Ulyanovsk" (pictured) managed to be built by 25% and form a hull on slipway "0", but the collapse of the USSR, the introduction of VAT by Gaidar and the subsequent collapse of cooperative ties with Russia stopped all work. In February 1992, the new Ukrainian government quickly issued an order to dismantle the aircraft carrier's hull for metal and sell the metal abroad.
34. It was more difficult with the Varyag - it was already 75% completed and began to be equipped. Kuchma and Chernomyrdin came there in 1993, but no decision was made. And then the Russian leadership no longer cared about ships and the fleet, after the rapid privatization of industry and the default of 1998. In general, the ship was rusting at the pier
35. In the end, the hull of the Varyag was bought by the Chinese and towed away to them. There are now plans to turn it into a training aircraft carrier to gain experience, by the Chinese navy and industry.
The collapse of the USSR marked a black watershed in the biography - the “plant of factories” practically stopped working, having handed over the medium-tonnage vessels that had already been laid down. Now life there is a little warm, they are trying to do something, but only 5% of the capacity is used (1/20), some of it is rented out, but overall the plant is not working. Qualified personnel fled, many are already retired - the third break in the work of the giant lasted for 19 years - much longer than during the years of wars and revolutions, and with a sadder result.
OK. So I told you a little about ChSZ. The story is instructive, and for a complete understanding of the topic, look at this poster. Yes, yes, guys and girls, it’s about us. It’s so deafening to waste your potential for the sake of chemical colored swill from the trough and cattle shows - you have to be able to do this!
Now let's go back along the Coastal Descent, through the barriers and viaduct.
Goodbye, ChSZ.
You had a beautiful story. But - tragic...
Photos were used from the sites nashflot.ru, avianosec.com, Wikipedia, worldweapon.ru, as well as some unattributed private photos.
To be continued.
Black Sea Shipyard -
great and tragic story...Black Sea Shipyard (ChSZ) in Nikolaev. At different times he bore other names - “Naval”, named after. Andre Marty, named after Nosenko, while remaining one of the two largest factories of the Russian Empire, and then the USSR, for the construction of the fleet. The biography of the plant for 95 active years (1897-1992), which the fickle muse Clio gave him, is simply amazing, from the dreadnoughts of the Russian Empire to the nuclear aircraft carrier cut up on the slipway, so at the end of the post I will briefly outline it.
"Welding" mosaic and anchor at the entrance to ChSZ behind the plant management
Well? Let's take the Nikolaevsky, barely breathing, old tram and leisurely ride along the sleepy streets in a southerly direction, closer to the Bugsky Estuary. There will be that very unique place that interests us.
1. But first of all - the map. This is how ChSZ is localized in Nikolaev. According to my rough estimates, it occupies approximately 15% of the city's territory (dense buildings). The plant is huge. Inclined slipway "0", which is marked with a separate arrow, is the same complex on which the hulls of aircraft carriers were formed, from the first sign of the Krechet project - "Kyiv" to the unfinished nuclear-powered "Ulyanovsk". In general, the plant was huge and multi-disciplinary - the “military” part of its production during the USSR occupied about 40%, the rest was civilian and research vessels.
The red arrows are our approach to the plant. The first two, to the right, are an unsuccessful attempt.
To be honest, I wasn’t very lucky that day in Nikolaev. Firstly, we drove from Odessa in the morning on a terribly broken road, and about 70% of the way we weaved between holes in the asphalt at about 35-40 km/h, and we inhaled dust, too. From the border of the Odessa region it was a really scary road, like after a bombing. Secondly, somewhere around lunch, after inspecting the pontoon bridge with a view of the rusting cruiser "Ukraine", going up the stairs, I awkwardly twisted my leg and after a while it began to annoy me. In addition, we could not find an acceptable eatery for a snack - either there was nothing along the way, or some restaurant with an absurd markup, and most importantly, with a long waiting period. We reached the tram ring, I sat down to catch my breath, unable to keep up the pace with my sprained leg, and there Bosun Zeleny went down to the river station and the Southern Bug alone, without me.
Trams in Nikolaev barely breathe, and they also barely run, rarely. We missed the direct tram, not understanding where the stop was, and got screwed. I suggested taking a minibus, but the boatswain wanted to take a tram, as a matter of principle, so we walked along the tram route, and after 4 stops the next one took us towards ChSZ.
Now, a little about our path to ChSZ, in photographs.
2. Here we are going in the wrong direction (but we don’t know it yet). This is a pre-revolutionary tram ring - it was built to the Naval plant (now ChSZ) back in 1915. The houses are stone, also from that period - pre-revolutionary.
In general, we got off at the factory stop, having lost almost an hour from the total time balance. There the jambs continued: at first we went in the wrong direction (the plant is huge), and realized our mistake after 20-25 minutes, running into fences and a line. We had to go back and try the second option, which turned out to be successful and led us straight to the cyclopean cranes of the “Zero” slipway.
3. We go to the south.
5. We pass along some factory street, with a rather gloomy aura.
4. Over there on the horizon on the right, the megacranes of slipway 0 appeared (they are the absolute landmark and dominant feature here), but you can’t get to them. The road goes left. So we're going to the wrong place.
6. The buildings are clearly pre-revolutionary, maybe “Naval” even built them at one time.
7. 8. We turn back and walk along a parallel street, passing by the buildings of the Nikolaev Korabelka (and this is logical - if there is a giant flagship plant, then the shipbuilding institute is not far away).
9. Aha! This is what we need. There is a passage under the line, and the main road, and the megacranes of the Zero slipway are right ahead. I hope you can go far south there.
10. The railway line to the plant runs over the road to ChSZ. Previously, it was multi-track - there was a lot of traffic, but now some of the lines have been removed, and there are only two tracks at the edges.
12. A large anchor was installed in front of the plant management to mark the 100th anniversary of the plant (1997). True, by this time the plant had already been in suspended animation for five years.
13. At the end of one of the buildings there are huge orders. Three are Soviet, and one is unknown to me. Maybe Ukrainian.
14. We went to the Coastal Descent. Fortunately, it is not blocked, we go to the slipway. Landmark - mega cranes.
15. 16. One of the entrance gates to the plant, with a mosaic on a welding theme (see the title photo of the article).
17. On the other side are the immediate post-war buildings of service and auxiliary industries.
18. Almost next to the slipway stands a modest white Lenin, possibly a Stalinist post-war building.
19. Now we are approaching the legendary incubator of Soviet aircraft carriers. The building on the right marks the beginning of the slipway proper of several tens of hectares. Although nothing is working here now, those around us are looking attentively at us. I try to shoot more inconspicuously and generally blend into the background.
20. Ahead of the course are colossal gantry cranes the height of a 24-story building (the photo somewhat hides the scale). They are visible several kilometers from the place, in all directions. These cranes and the slipway itself were installed in 1982-83. in preparation for the construction of full-size aircraft-carrying ships. That is, they finished the series of “sub-aircraft carriers” of the “Kyiv” type, then re-equipped the slipway, and the “Admiral Kuznetsov” and “Varyag” (project 1143.5) were already built with these, on new technological equipment. The lifting capacity of the cranes is 900 tons each. Since 1983, aircraft carrier cruisers have been built in large-block modules.
We reached the very end, further there, but there - beyond the fence - I no longer dared to take pictures, for fear of losing what I was filming. Maybe it’s reinsurance, but if we were mistaken for “journalists”, then a showdown and explanations would not be avoided - the plant is now being raided by raiders, the territory is being torn to pieces.
22. But the photo of the same place (inclined slipway "0") is true - a view from above, this is the heyday of the plant, late Soviet times. Please note that everything here is not the same as in the previous Wikipedia photo. Firstly, the peninsula is much larger and longer, and secondly, the slipway itself is divided into two zones. This was done so that a ship more than 300 m long could be built simultaneously, in large modules, and installation carried out in parallel. Nuclear-powered aircraft carrier "Ulyanovsk" in 1989-91. it was mounted on a slipway like this: the main volume, 260 m long, was built on the right half, and its bow, 65 m long, was built next to it, on the left. But these mega-cranes carried out the installation of large-block sections weighing 300-900 tons. Special vehicle trailers transported smaller parts of the aircraft carrier, weighing from 100 to 200 tons, to the assembly site of the modules themselves. Space for such an assembly is reserved on the side of the “nose” construction.
23. This is what slipway “0” looks like from the water. This, however, is already a post-Soviet, “dead” time - some kind of hut was built on the slipway, but the slipway itself is empty, there is no “product”.
24. Another photo of slipway “0”, mid-1980s, with a project 1143.5 product being assembled.
And now it would be correct to tell the biography of this plant, at least briefly. To better understand what kind of system it was, what it did. I will try to concisely, with a dotted line - only the main milestones.
In 1901, independent ship construction began: a series of destroyers was laid down. In 1908, Naval absorbed the neighboring Black Sea plant and became the largest plant in the south of Russia. From this time on, large-scale construction began: underwater minelayers, Novik-class destroyers, mine cruisers. But the milestone was 1911: two dreadnought-class battleships were laid down at the plant. This is the pinnacle of shipbuilding and the center of advanced technologies of that time. In this case, for the sake of fairness, I would defend the Russian Empire: it mastered not only the laying and equipping of the largest plant, the creation of a chain of cooperative ties, but also its rapid transition to the pinnacle of shipbuilding technology, in just 14 years. You can, of course, criticize its social system and politics, but you also cannot forget about such facts.
So, in 1915, the shipyard delivered the dreadnought battleship Empress Catherine the Great to the Imperial Navy. This battleship is notable for the fact that on January 8, 1916, it had an artillery duel with the famous German-Turkish Goeben. Then - revolution and civil war. It brought the plant its first break in activity (1918-1925).
When the country recovered a little from the revolutionary storms and shed blood, the plant again returned to its purpose, but under a new “revolutionary” name - it. Andre Marty. At first they began to build light ships and civilian vessels, then they moved on to more serious projects - cruisers, destroyer leaders, destroyers, and large-scale construction of submarines. Icebreakers and pontoon sets were also built. And in 1938, after a general reconstruction during the 2nd Five-Year Plan, the battleship "Soviet Ukraine" was laid down at the plant (which was not destined to be completed).
26. Here is one of the plant's "chicks" - the cruiser "Molotov" (1941), which fought in 1941-43. The war brought a second break in work - from the autumn of 1941 to the summer of 1944. At the same time, it should be especially noted that all valuable technological equipment, unfinished hulls afloat, reserves of ship metal and qualified personnel were evacuated by sea, in parallel with the evacuation of Odessa. Losses during this operation were minimal. The plant stopped working, but the potential remained - which made it possible to quickly resume work in 1945.
The Germans left the plant on March 27, 1944, destroying 95% of the infrastructure and almost all buildings, slipways, workshops and boathouses. In general, a logical decision, because otherwise the enemy would have repaired the damaged Black Sea Fleet ships. The destruction of the plant - paradoxically - helped to rebuild it at a new technological level. It was recreated in a construction sense from scratch, but at the same time retaining its frames, as well as tooling. True, I did not find information on whether reparations and captured equipment influenced the plant, but I must admit that it was revived quickly and already at the end of 1945 began to work at full capacity.
After the war, the plant was recreated and became a multi-functional "plant of factories" of ships, surpassing all three Leningrad "brothers" in scale. The longest period of its heyday begins (1945-1991). At this time, he is building not only a military base, but also much more - icebreakers, tugboats, whaling bases, dry cargo ships, research vessels, floating bases and missile reloaders, submarine bases, floating workshops, supertrawlers-fish carriers, BMRT, vessels for marine research bottom, tankers, bulk carriers. During the Soviet post-war period, more than half a thousand (!) ships were built to equip the commercial, research and fishing fleets of the USSR. Medium-tonnage vessels were built on a production line, like a conveyor. Docks for other factories, pontoons and the aircraft carrier test complex "Nitka" were also built.TAKR "Kyiv"
27. However, the brightest page of the plant was the construction of aircraft-carrying ships for the ocean-going fleet of the Soviet Union.
At the same time, the plant gradually moved towards complexity, mastering and accumulating more and more complex technologies and the most valuable thing - experience. First, a pair of Project 1123 helicopter carriers (Moscow and Leningrad) were built, then they moved on to the construction of larger carriers - aircraft-carrying cruisers of the Kyiv type, Project 1143. 1971 Launching of the Kyiv aircraft carrier.
28. “Product” of a plant at sea (TAKR “Kyiv”). Second half of the 1970s.
History of the aircraft carrier "Kyiv"
Built from 1970 to 1975 in Nikolaev at the Black Sea Shipyard. Construction started on July 21, 1970
Launched December 26, 1972
Commissioned on December 28, 1975
Withdrawn from the fleet on June 30, 1993
In 1993, due to a lack of funds for operation and repair, significant depletion of weapons, mechanisms and equipment, it was withdrawn from the fleet, then disarmed and sold to the PRC government. In early 1994, it was towed to Qinhuangdao, where it was converted into a museum.
In September 2003, the Kiev was towed to Tianjin.
Current status: sold to a Chinese company for an amusement park.TAKR "Minsk"
29.TAKR "Minsk" was launched on September 30, 1975.
Entered service in 1978. In November 1978 it would be included in the Pacific Fleet.
In 1993, a decision was made to disarm the Minsk, its exclusion from the Russian Navy and its transfer to the OFI for dismantling and sale.
In August 1994, after the ceremonial lowering of the Naval flag, it was disbanded.
At the end of 1995, the Minsk was towed to South Korea to cut its hull into metal. Afterwards, the aircraft carrier was resold to the Chinese company Shenzhen Minsk Aircraft Carrier Industry Co Ltd. In 2006, when the company went bankrupt, Minsk became part of the Minsk World military park in Shenzhen. On March 22, 2006, the aircraft carrier was put up for auction, but there were no buyers. On May 31, 2006, the aircraft carrier was put up for auction again and was sold for 128 million yuan.
Modern status - entertainment center.TAKR "Novorossiysk"
29. Here is another photo from the biography of ChSZ - Delivery of the next TAKR to the fleet - "Novorossiysk" (in the background stands the unfinished "Baku", now "Gorshkov", sold in 2001 to the Indians, but still not re-equipped).
History of the aircraft carrier "Novorossiysk"
Built from 1975 to 1978 at a shipyard in Nikolaev (Black Sea Shipyard, director Gankevich). Changes made to the project during construction delayed the commissioning date until 1982.
Since 1978, it was launched and completed floating. On August 15, 1982, the USSR Naval Flag was solemnly raised on the ship, and on November 24 it was included in the Red Banner Pacific Fleet.
TAKR "Novorossiysk" was withdrawn from the fleet in 1991. Current status - sold to South Korea
TAKR "Admiral Gorshkov"
Heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser "Admiral Gorshkov" (until October 4, 1990 it was called "Baku", then renamed "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov", but recently in official documents it has been referred to in a simplified form as "Admiral Gorshkov") - Soviet and Russian heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser, the only ship of Project 1143.4, sold to India on January 20, 2004.
On March 5, 2004, the cruiser was expelled from the service of the Russian Navy, the current name was canceled, and the St. Andrew's flag was ceremonially lowered.
Currently, the ship, after a complete rebuild, has been commissioned into the Indian Navy as the aircraft carrier Vikramaditya and is being completed afloat at one of the berths of the Northern Engineering Enterprise.
TAKR "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov"
Laying down the aircraft carrier "Riga" (later - "Leonid Brezhnev", "Tbilisi", "Admiral Kuznetsov") on the zero slipway of ChSZ.
From left to right: head of the assembly and slipway shop L.P. Trishchenko, chief builder I.N. Ovdienko, secretary of the Nikolaev regional party committee for the defense industry V.A. Demyanov, chief builder G.I. Zhurenko, director of ChSZ Yu.I. Makarov, commander of the Red Black Sea Fleet Admiral N.I. Khovrin. September 1, 1982.
In the early 1980s, slipway "0" was re-equipped at a new level and the next, more complex stage began - the construction of aircraft carriers based on full-fledged aircraft (project 1143.5), and not vertical take-off, as on the "Kyiv" type. Two hulls were laid down, one of them was successfully completed and delivered to the fleet (Admiral Kuznetsov), and the second - Varyag - was not completed before the collapse of the USSR. On January 1, 1992, he was already at the outfitting wall, 75% ready, but alas.
31. Product of the plant ("Admiral Kuznetsov") at sea.TAKR "Ulyanovsk"
32. In 1988, the plant moved to the next level of complexity - the accumulated experience and design cooperation with the Nevsky Central Design Bureau (Leningrad) made it possible to move on to the construction of a full-size heavy aircraft carrier, without any "buts" - the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier "Ulyanovsk" (project 1143.7) was laid down. . Displacement, according to various sources, from 74,000 to 85,000 tons, four reactors, backup diesel engines, an air wing of 70-72 aircraft, including AWACS aircraft.
It was already a full-fledged leader and the core of a naval strike group, comparable to the Nimitz class. The ship was scheduled to be commissioned in November 1995.
33. Before January 1, 1992, "Ulyanovsk" (pictured) managed to be built by 25% and form a hull on slipway "0", but the collapse of the USSR, the introduction of VAT by Gaidar and the subsequent collapse of cooperative ties with Russia stopped all work.
In February 1992, the new Ukrainian government quickly issued an order to dismantle the aircraft carrier's hull for metal and sell the metal abroad.TAKR "Varyag"
34. It was more difficult with the Varyag - it was already 67% completed and began to be equipped. Kuchma and Chernomyrdin came there in 1993, but no decision was made. And then the Russian leadership no longer cared about ships and the fleet, after the rapid privatization of industry and the default of 1998. In general, the ship was rusting at the pier...
Varyag (until June 19, 1990 - “Riga”), heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser of Project 1143.6.
On December 6, 1985, it was laid down at the Black Sea Shipyard in Nikolaev (serial number 106), launched on November 25, 1988.
35. In April 1998, Varyag was sold to Chong Lot Travel Agency Ltd for $20 million - with a finished cost of about $3-5 billion.
Since 2008 - renamed “Shi Lang”.
The collapse of the USSR marked a black watershed in the biography - the “plant of factories” practically stopped working, having handed over the medium-tonnage vessels that had already been laid down. Now life there is a little warm, they are trying to do something, but only 5% of the capacity is used (1/20), some of it is rented out, but overall the plant is not working. Qualified personnel fled, many are already retired - the third break in the work of the giant lasted for 19 years - much longer than during the years of wars and revolutions, and with a sadder result. Goodbye, ChSZ. You had a beautiful story - great, but... tragic.
Based on materials from http://periskop.livejournal.com/622121.html, http://www.avianosec.com
The workshop produces blanks and individual parts of ship hulls from rolled sheets and profiles. Workshop area 23,000 sq.m. (5 spans 195x120 m.)
The structure of the workshop includes sections for straightening sheet and profile products; sheet cutting and packaging; flexible; profile processing.
In the straightening area, abrasive cleaning and painting units clean the metal with steel shot to a degree of SA 2½ according to the Swedish standard.
The workshop's machine park includes 3 lines for thermal cutting of metal with a thickness of 3 to 100 mm. with a maximum size of 3000x12000 mm, equipped with 10 “Crystal” machines and one “AG-400” machine,
a wide range of sheet bending and pressing equipment, providing bending of sheet (up to 60 mm thick) and profile steel, and a line for processing rolled profiles. Guillotines allow mechanical cutting of sheet steel up to 10 mm thick.
Transportation of semi-finished products and parts between production sites is carried out using roller tables and crane equipment with a lifting capacity of 2 to 20 tons.
The throughput of existing equipment allows processing about 40,000 tons of metal per year.
Assembly of components, parts, flat and volumetric sections of ships under construction is carried out. The workshop consists of two buildings with 4 and 3 bays.
The 4-bay building with an area of 12,000 m2 is equipped with production lines for welded set, bottom set and atypical flat sections. The workshop bays are equipped with cranes with a lifting capacity of 30-80 tons, which allows the production of sections weighing from 30 to 120 tons. The sections are transported by rail.
In a 3-bay building with an area of 18,000 m2, there is a production area for flat sections with dimensions of 16x16 m. In the remaining two spans, the production of large-sized volumetric sections is carried out. All spans are equipped with cranes with a lifting capacity of 100 tons, which allows the production of sections with a maximum size of up to 32x16x7.5 m and a weight of up to 180 tons.
In the assembly and welding shop, all main types of welding are used: automatic submerged welding, semi-automatic in shielding gases, manual.
Transportation of sections from the workshop to the painting chamber, to the slipways and the loading point is carried out using a MAFI automobile trailer with a capacity of 350 tons and by factory railway transport.
The throughput capacity of the workshop achieved with the existing equipment is 30,000 tons of processed metal per year.
Slipway “0” is intended for the construction of ships with a displacement of up to 100 thousand tons and has the following main characteristics:
overall size 330x40 m.
launching weight of vessels - up to 25 thousand tons.
The slipway is equipped with 2 portal cranes with a lifting capacity of 900 tons each. On a powerful near-frame slab (250x40 m), it is possible to install and assemble sections weighing up to 1460 tons.
Slipway “1” is intended for the construction of ships with a displacement of up to 45 thousand tons and has the following characteristics:
overall size 290x33 m.
launching weight of vessels - up to 10 thousand tons.
Manufactures and installs systems and products from steel, copper, copper-nickel, bimetallic, stainless steel and other pipes.
At the pipe cutting and bending section, large diameter pipes are cut using a UTS-325 gas cutting machine; cutting small diameter pipes on cutting machines; pipe bending on pipe bending machines type STG and TGSV. There is all the necessary bench equipment for hydraulic testing and X-ray testing. All bays of the workshop are equipped with suspended crane beams and cranes with lifting capacity from 1 to 5 tons.
The structure of the workshop also includes a chemical pipe cleaning section, a galvanic section and storage facilities.
Performs installation of ship mechanisms, power plants and their systems, control and automation systems, auxiliary ship mechanisms and devices, MSCh, MZK products and performs other assembly and welding work for the needs of shipbuilding and ship repair.
The workshop includes a closed-type floating complex with a movable roof, located in the area of slipway “0”, in which the complete assembly of main engines weighing up to 500 tons is carried out with subsequent loading onto ships being built on this slipway. The engine is loaded using 900 tons of cranes.
Performs completion and equipment of ships under construction and repair on slipways and afloat at outfitting quays. The workshop has three finishing quays.
Eastern embankment - length 235 m, served by 2 cranes with a lifting capacity of 10 and 20 tons.
Northern embankment - length 338.8 m, served by 2 cranes with a lifting capacity of 40 tons and one crane with a lifting capacity of 30 tons.
Western embankment - length 297.1 m, served by 2 cranes with a lifting capacity of 40 tons.
There is a special test bench for testing main engines and propulsion installation of ships on thrust, with a power of up to 12000÷14000 kW.
The existing production capacities and areas of outfitting shops make it possible to ensure the completion and delivery of ships with a total deadweight of up to 100 thousand tons. in year.
In the painting chamber (120x24 m) sections and small bodies are painted. Large vessels are painted using mobile installations directly at the production sites.
The chamber is equipped with modern cleaning and painting equipment made in Germany, Sweden, and the USA. Transportation of sections to the painting booth is carried out both by in-plant railway transport and using a MAFI ship trolley.
The total annual painted area, taking into account the painting of ships on the slipways and outfitting quays, is about 520,000 - 540,000 m2.
PPP is intended for serial construction of ships with a deadweight of up to 9,000 tons.
The production areas and the ship construction production line are located in a single covered boathouse 420 m long. The PPP structure represents a complete cycle for the construction and repair of ships.
The building consists of a main span and two adjacent transverse buildings, consisting of seven and four separately located transverse spans.
In seven transverse spans with overall dimensions of 96x156 m, there is an assembly and welding production facility for the production of vessel sections serviced by overhead cranes with lifting capacity from 10 to 50 tons.
In four bays of the building with overall dimensions of 96x96 m, mechanical installation and pipe-making production is located, serviced by overhead cranes with lifting capacity from 5 to 20 tons.
Insulation, carpentry and finishing production areas are located in separate buildings.
In the main span of the boathouse, which has dimensions of 30x384 m, the blocks are assembled and the main hull of the vessel is formed at three slipway positions. All positions are equipped with stationary
(transportable) forests. The formation of ship blocks is carried out using lateral pre-stall positions equipped with the necessary stands.
The available crane equipment in the amount of 9 units with a lifting capacity from 22 to 200 tons allows for cargo operations with hull structures and equipment weighing up to 200 tons and a lifting height of up to 15 m.
Vessels are formed on ship carts, which are moved by capstan to production positions and to a floating dock for launching.
In an open position behind the main span, superstructures, masts, chimneys and other ship equipment that cannot be installed under the roof of the main span are installed. The open position is equipped with portal cranes with lifting capacity of 30 and 50 tons.
A floating dock with a slipway-deck size of 120x40 m ensures docking of watercraft weighing up to 9000 tons (during the repair and modernization of ships).
The floating dock provides the possibility of launching vessels and lifting vessels onto a horizontal slipway position up to 145 m long, no more than 17 m wide, weighing up to 3500 tons. From the horizontal slipway position under the roof of the continuous production workshop, it is possible for vessels to pass with limited mast heights and antenna posts up to 18 m.
The 1980s were the peak of the industrial power of the shipbuilding giant of the USSR - the Black Sea Shipyard. The high point of his performance, successes and achievements. The enterprise also had plenty of merit to the Fatherland: the ships built in Nikolaev on the stocks of ChSZ numbered in the hundreds and plied all the seas and oceans of the planet. The plant, like many enterprises of the Soviet Union, had a wide range of production from heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers and gas turbine roll-off ships to excellent quality furniture, which still serves many residents of Nikolaev regularly. The plant had many institutions on its balance sheet: a large palace of culture, libraries, 23 kindergartens with 3,500 places, boarding houses, sanatoriums, and recreation centers. The Black Sea plant was one of the city-forming enterprises of Nikolaev.Assembly shop of nuclear reactors for the aircraft-carrying cruiser "Ulyanovsk"
In the fall of 1988, for the first time in the history of domestic shipbuilding, a nuclear-powered heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser was laid down at the Black Sea Shipyard."Ulyanovsk" . It was planned to build a series of 4 units of similar ships, which would take the Soviet fleet to a new qualitative level.
However, just at the time when the plant achieved such high performance, serious problems began for the country for which it worked. In the second half of the 80s. the ever more accelerating destruction of the USSR clearly began. The Soviet Union needed modernization and reform, and at first the process, with the light hand of the new talkative General Secretary, was called “perestroika.” However, very soon this word, in the context of the current situation in the country, became synonymous with disaster.
The Black Sea plant was busy with orders at that time. Somewhere in Moscow, the passions and passions of all kinds of congresses of deputies of varying degrees of “nationality” were raging, Mikhail Gorbachev continued to bore his listeners with incomprehensible speeches, in which there was less and less meaning and more and more wasted time. And aircraft carriers were still being built in Nikolaev. The country still maintained its unity, and materials and components from subcontractors came to the plant from all its distant and near lands.
But increasingly intensifying gusts of the cold and evil wind of change began to penetrate beyond the high walls of the plant. Prices crept up, inflation began before the seemingly unshakable ruble. If, in the initial calculations, the cost of building a heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser"Varangian" amounted to a considerable amount of 500 million, then by 1990 it confidently reached the billion dollar mark and quickly surpassed it. Even the uninterrupted until recently delivery of necessary equipment and materials has now become more chaotic. Not all delays could now be attributed, as before, to carelessness that was not uncommon in production matters.
Socio-economic relations in society began to transform - the massive creation of cooperatives began, into which enterprising and qualified workers and employees began to go. However, things have not yet reached the point of a mass outflow of personnel from the plant. By the summer of 1990, in addition to the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Varyag, which was undergoing completion, and the nuclear-powered heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Ulyanovsk, which was on the slipway, the plant was building a floating base for recharging nuclear submarines of Project 2020 (code "Malina") and the reconnaissance ship SSV-189 "Dnieper region". The latter was supposed to become a ship for illuminating the underwater situation, for which it was planned to have a unique hydroacoustic station “Dniester” with a lowered antenna.
Floating base for recharging nuclear installations of submarines of Project 2020
Regular shipbuilding work was carried out on all these ships, although, of course, priority was given to heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers. At the same time, the plant carried out orders for the national economy. The production line assembly shop for large fishing trawlers worked continuously.
August 1991 accelerated destructive processes in the state mechanism, which at that time had become practically irreversible. That same month, Ukraine unilaterally declared its independence. The enthusiasm of politicians and a significant part of society clearly smacked of joyful cheerfulness. The election campaign before the declared referendum and the election of the first president went exclusively to one goal. A set of theses and arguments, most of which were supposed to excite the imagination and digestive tract, boiled down to the slogan: “To be rich, you must be independent!”
Some idealists, having taken a breath of the air of “freedom,” still hoped that in the new reality there would still be a place for the then powerful Ukrainian industry. Leonid Kravchuk did not fail to visit Nikolaev and the Black Sea plant as part of the election campaign. The sweet-voiced politician did not spare honey for speeches full of admiration, praise and especially promises. In response to a direct question from the factory workers whether the heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers located at the factory would be completed, Kravchuk answered without hesitation that, of course, they would. So the majority voted for Mr. Kravchuk, who seemed more “on the inside” (and promised to build aircraft carriers), and not for his opponent, Vyacheslav Chornovol, known for his long-standing political dissidence.
Few people could have imagined then that the sugary sweetness of the promises of the future president would soon be replaced by the bitterness of disappointment. One of the few who did not have the habit of easily wearing glasses with pink lenses was Yuri Ivanovich Makarov, the director of the plant. Like no one else, he understood what, how and where it was necessary to complete the complex production process of completing the construction of heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers. I understood that without clear, systematic and centralized management of this process, it would inevitably end in weeds in the workshops and the hiss of a gas cutter.
In October 1991, the Navy, still a single entity, was forced to stop funding the construction of warships at the enterprise. For some time, by inertia, work was carried out on them until they calmed down completely. Makarov did everything he could in that difficult and increasingly hopeless situation. He pestered the ministries and departments of Russia and Ukraine. He used all his numerous connections and channels, demanded, begged and persuaded.
As it turned out, no one cared about the unique warships that were actually left abroad. Moscow was fixated on its own problems - ahead was the division of the colossal Soviet inheritance, reforms more like legalized robbery, the launch of prices for low-Earth orbit and privatization. Kyiv politicians were even less interested in some kind of aircraft carriers - in their worldview, this high achievement of engineering and design thought was destined for a very insignificant place somewhere deep in the shadow of high mountains made of lard, which now would not be taken away and eaten by the inhabitants of Russia.
To operate such a large plant with a large staff, significant funding was required. The Kyiv authorities made it clear that in the new conditions, such an annoying trifle as providing itself with orders, the plant will have to deal with independently. And the already independent, but still poor state does not have the funds to complete the construction of heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers. The authority of the enterprise was very high in the world - many foreign shipowners knew first-hand about its products. After all, back in Soviet times, the Black Sea Shipyard built merchant ships for export to Western countries.
The first customers appeared. These were representatives of the Norwegian brokerage company Libek& Partners, who began negotiating the construction of tankers at the plant for the Norwegian shipowner Arneberg with a deadweight of 45 thousand tons. The plant has not built vessels of this type since the 1950s, when construction was carried out series of tankers of the Kazbek type.
Director Yuri Makarov faced a difficult choice: to put Ulyanovsk, which was 70% ready for launching, into gas cutting in order to free the slipway, or to refuse the contract. The unfinished aircraft-carrying cruiser suddenly turned out to be of no use to anyone - neither Russia, nor especially Ukraine. Meanwhile, smart business people from overseas appeared at the plant, offering to buy Ulyanovsk metal at the fabulous price of $550 per ton. To celebrate, the Ukrainian government in early February 1992 issued a decree on the disposal of the nuclear-powered heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser. Yuri Ivanovich Makarov did not see the beginning of the agony of the first and, as it turned out, the last Soviet aircraft carrier with a nuclear power plant - on January 4, 1992, he became seriously ill.
Having turned into piles of bags of scrap metal, Ulyanovsk was no longer needed by buyers, who, as it turned out, were willing to pay no more than $120 per ton. For many years, thousands of tons of metal lay throughout the plant until they were finally able to be sold.
"Pridneprovye" becomes "Slavutich"
In addition to the gigantic heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers, other ships being built for the navy also experienced the difficult period of the collapse of the Soviet Union. One of them is the Project 12884 ship “Pridneprovye”. In 1987, the Chernomorets Central Design Bureau in Sevastopol, based on a large freezer trawler of Project 12880, developed a large reconnaissance ship on the Corrugation theme.
The Black Sea plant already had experience in building reconnaissance ships based on trawlers. Back in November 1984, the large reconnaissance ship of Project 10221 “Kamchatka” was laid down at the enterprise. A special feature of this reconnaissance aircraft was the presence of an experimental towed radiating antenna of the Dniester coastal hydroacoustic complex. The complex, of which Kamchatka was an integral part, was capable of detecting submarines at a distance of 100 km in noise bearing and up to 400 km in echo bearing. The detection accuracy was 20 meters. The ship was equipped with a special lifting and lowering device.
Project 10221 reconnaissance ship "Kamchatka"
This complex and unique equipment was manufactured at the Black Sea Shipyard. The lifting and lowering device was not a simple winch. It was a complex and labor-intensive engineering structure. Initially, its tests were supposed to be carried out at sea with a special mock-up that imitated an antenna. However, to save time, it was decided to go a different route. The Kamchatka hull was to be assembled from three parts. The middle part, where the hoisting and lowering device was located, was assembled on the pre-slip plate of slipway number 1. After assembly and installation, statistical tests were carried out, with 900-ton gantry cranes used to simulate pitching. The three parts of the hull were then joined in the factory transfer floating dock, alternately rolling the bow and stern parts of the hull onto it. The middle part was installed using floating cranes. Such a difficult operation significantly reduced the ship's testing time. Having entered service in 1986, Kamchatka went to the Far East and became part of the Pacific Fleet.
The Project 12884 ship, like the Kamchatka, was a large reconnaissance ship, or a ship for illuminating the underwater situation. It was supposed to differ from its “ancestor”, a large freezer trawler, only in the narrow and high superstructure above the upper deck, where the lifting and lowering device was supposed to be located. To lower and raise the antenna of the Dniester complex, there was a through shaft inside the housing that was closed from below. The total displacement of the scout was 5830 tons.
Work to prepare for the construction of the “Pridneprovya” (as it was decided to name the new reconnaissance aircraft) began on January 1, 1988 on slipway number 1. At that moment, floating bases for Project 2020 nuclear submarines were being built on it, and the ship had to be squeezed into a busy slipway schedule. The hull of Project 12884, or Order 902, was laid down in August 1988, and launched in 1990. By the end of 1990, the readiness of Pridneprovya was about 46%. Unlike Kamchatka, it was built for service in the Northern Fleet. The pace of work on it was subsequently reduced in favor of concentrating production resources on the heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers Varyag and Ulyanovsk.
In the fall of 1991, funding for order 902, like other ships for the navy, ceased. In 1992, given the high degree of readiness of the Pridneprovya, the Ukrainian authorities decided to complete the construction of the ship and introduce it into the fleet. However, no one was going to supply an independent state with the latest and unique lowered antenna, without which its use for its intended purpose would become problematic. The ship, taking into account the extensive premises provided for the installation of various reconnaissance equipment, was proposed to be completed as a headquarters or control ship.
Control ship "Slavutich" in storage in Sevastopol
In August 1992, it was renamed Slavutich, and in November of the same year, the Ukrainian naval flag was raised on it. The service of the Slavutich took place in numerous flag demonstrations, visits to ports of foreign countries and in numerous exercises, including with NATO ships. After the reunification of Crimea with Russia, Slavutich remains in storage in Sevastopol. His fate has not yet been determined. Ironically, the Pridneprovye - Slavutich turned out to be the last warship to date to be completely completed by the Black Sea Shipyard.
