Zvezda Shipyard (Bolshoi Kamen)

 shipyard, draw only border

Zvezda Shipyard (Bolshoi Kamen)

Bolshoi Kamen on the Sea of Japan is a military town of 30-50,000 residents. it is located 12 miles northeast of Vladivostok across Lazurnaya Bay. Primorskii Krai lies in the southern part of the Russian Far East occupying 165,900 sq km along the coast of the Sea of Japan. Over 60% of the engineering sector in Primorsky Territory is engaged in the ship industry, the centers of which are Nakhodka, Vladivostok, Bolshoi Kamen and Slavyanka. Defence-oriented engineering production is being converted to manufacture of fishing vessels, refrigerated vessels, tankers and timber vessels.

Zvezda, a sprawling military shipyard at Bolshoi Kamen, is a subordinate facility of Dalzavod, headquartered in Vladivostok. The Zvezda Shipyard repairs Russian Navy nuclear-powered submarines, but the government has said that it will also repair conventional attack submarines sold to foreign navies, as well as build and repair merchant vessels. Zvezda is used to repair second-generation submarines, and the staff and equipment are preparing for the fourth-generation subs. In 1998 the 190 million rubles earmarked for Zvezda to repair submarines was slashed to just 6 million. The submarine construction complex, with 3,000 workers, also repairs navy and private vessels and builds smaller boats.

Photo montage opposie illustrates projection of how the Shipyard could look after the redevelopment proposal has been implemented.

Socio-economic problems within Russia led to significant local unrest in the shipyards and harbors containing the laid up nuclear submarines. Basic social services were curtailed and salaries went unpaid.

In March 1997 some 2,000 workers at the Zvezda submarine repair facility blocked the highway connecting Vladivostok and Nakhodka. They were demanding both their back wages and the resignation of the government. In November 1996 the mayor of Bolshoi Kamen warned the population they might have to move elsewhere during the winter to keep warm because the city had used up all its fuel reserves and could not buy any more until the Ministry of Defense paid its debts. The cash-strapped Zvezda facility, entrusted with storing the town's winter fuel reserves, had used them for its own needs and failed to obtain a bank credit to purchase new fuel.

In late July 1997 Zvezda Shipyard received 10 billion Russian rubles from the central government to pay wages owed since December 1996. On 01 July 1997, employees blocked the Trans-Siberian Railway to demand their wages, and were promised 20 billion rubles. The second half of that promise was secured after a 20-day strike that ended 21 July 1997. The central government still owed at least 60 bilion rubles in salaries to the yard.

The Zvezda plant planned to double the number of dismantled submarines in 1999, to four, increase the number of jobs at the enterprise to 1,000 or even 1,200. The modernisation of the Zvezda plant, originally planned to be carried out before 2003 and financed by the US within the framework of the military conversion program, will make it possible to start the creation of new production capacities for the repair of ships and shipbuilding (see photo for projected image). As of October 1999 the Nuclear Ministry was searching for places for temporary storage of the spent fuel from nuclear-powered submarines. It was considering bases on the Kola peninsula, the Andreyeva inlet, Gremikha, the Nerpa ship-repairing plant near Murmansk, and Kamchatka.

www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/bolshoi-ka...
www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/naval/nucflt/pacflt/bols...