Speeches and interviews: Vladimir Alexandrov, Igor Dygalo,Yuriy Kormilitsin and Mikhail Zaharenko

1. Vladimir Alexandrov, general director of Admiralty Shipyards:

According to the head of the well doing state owned shipyard full of civil and military order “everything is clear with the integrations and cooperations”. Whatever form it takes it is aimed at ensuring the competitiveness in a number of directions. Today Russian shipbuilding strives for both vertical and horizontal integration. This is to solve a number of principle problems facing the industry.

“Today there is no secret that every shipyard has “natural farming” (self sufficient production of nearly every component of the ship). This is nonsense. Whatever organizational form the shipyard have, they must get rid of it”. By the way Mr. Alexandrov referred to the discussions about the reorganizations in the industry which are at least 20 years old. At that time the shipbuilding was in a far better position, but the principal approached suggested as a method of improvement were nearly the same.

An economic problem inherited from the times where shipbuilders did not count money is that each worker has of a shipyard has several “auxiliary workers”, this is also nonsense and it is also necessary to get rid of this practice as soon as possible. Having such an organization leave no hope to compete in labor efficiency. This process, of course, needs time. It is integrally linked to the rates of technological improvement of the production lines. Admiralty Shipyards is among the top several shipyard of the country who invest most of all in technological upgrade.

The second problem is “huge parallelism in R&D”. However, according to Mr. Alexandrov “this is being decided slowly and calmly”.

On November, 9 there were three important meetings concerning the shipbuilding in general. In Moscow the agency of industry gathered the “heads of the designers and companies” to make the efforts aimed at avoiding parallelism uniform and coordinated. By December, 1 there must be even an official document, which is to specify who deals with what. We are very comfortable with this, said Mr. Alexandrov.

It is interesting to note, that although there are no persons indifferent to how the reforms will go on, orders and volumes remain the point number one in the minds of top managers. Even speaking about the organizational reforms, the top manager of Admiralty Shipyards said that the most important is to have orders. “With orders the form of management can be found”. He also said “we support the changes the political leaders and the govt demand from the industry”.

Commenting the perspectives of the international cooperation Mr. Alexandrov said that cooperation is natural and logic, “everybody does it and we also, no nation can do everything itself”.

Nowadays, as a lot of material appear in the open sources commenting the expected reforms, much of them tend to focus on civil projects. This is true that the development of everything civil is viewed as a key to the success. Roughly saying the contexts drives at the conclusion “no success in civil shipbuilding – no success in general”. However, it does not mean that military shipbuilding, including export projects got the lowered status.

Another event which took place on November, 9 there was a “big scientific-technical council” (according to the context in SPb), which considered military-technical cooperation with foreign nations (MTC). According to Mr. Alexandrov “MTC is also an integral element of the development. If our subs are the best and enjoy demand why we should not count on this advantage?” It was also straightforwardly said that a lot of developments in the military shipbuilding should be paid for with export money. Mr. Alexandrov was not asked to assess anything, it was his sincere opinion, when he said “there are a lot of justified and excellent ideas from our designers and researchers”. In the near future they will be worked out, formulated and presented to the government for considering.

The third meeting of high ranking officials coincided with the ceremony of laying down the sub and the corvette. Previously it was announced that the commander of the Navy Vladimir Masorin would participate in both ceremonies. However, he did not appear. According to the well informed sources he participated in the special meeting of the members of Maritime Collegiums which also took place on November, 10.

There is yet another event which is due to take place on November, 23. The Expert Club of the ministry of industry invites scientists, industrialists and experts to participate in the meeting of the Club dedicated to the “Perspectives of the Development of Russian Shipbuilding”. The invitation paper, which our contact also has, asks to fill in a special questionnaire and prepare to discuss two points: 1) Main problems and their solutions, 2) inter-industries’ relations of the shipbuilders, status and perspectives. After 23 we are likely to have some comments from there.

2. Igor Dygalo, press secretary of the Russian Navy:

Gradually such subs (Sankt Peterburg type) will replace all diesel subs the Navy has at the moment. Sevastopol is likely to be built in 2-3 years, but the this part the conversation was in a restricted audience and the press secretary asked to be careful and not release this terms. “ Sevastopol” is the end of the celebration of the 100 th anniversary of the Russian Navy.

This year no more laying down of combat ships or submarine, most likely in the beginning of the next, but there is no need at the moment to specify dates. Mr. Dygalo pointed the attention that two years ago commander Masorin promised the directors (of the manufacturers) to start serial manufacturing. The word was kept. 677 subs and 20380 corvettes are built serially with accelerating rates. Naming what ships were laid down recently and where they will be operated Mr. Dygalo mentioned the phrase that “south (Caspian Sea, which will operate “ Astrakhan”) is very important”.

There was one more matter which the Navy, according to its press secretary, would like to be clearly stated and distributed in the mass media. The constructions of the newest subs, both nuclear and diesel goes parallel with the constructions of the rescue ships and equipment. First of all this is “much awaited” “Igor Belousov”. Each fleet of the Russian Navy “badly waits for such systems as many as possible”. The core of the rescue forces will be the previously reported Pantera Plus. In fact according to Mr. Dygalo it was so considerably modified and improved that de facto it is not an “apparatus” as it was officially named before, but a “complex”. Later it will be regarded as a Russian model, it is already coordinated with the British company. Now the complex is being tested in the 40 th NII (research institute). By the end of Novemebr the tests must finish, later tests will start in the “big water”. Another improvement that rescue system will be based on the “auto - aero mobile complex”.

3. General designer Kormilitsin and deputy commander Zaharenko:

Stoiky has the biggest difference. And among the big differences the biggest difference is in the air defense complex. This was done as a response to the demands of the navy, which stipulated some requirements / characteristics the ship must meet. The improved air defense forced additional developments. The 20380 corvette encompasses three zones. This ship is universal, but it can be also used for specialized tasks: anti ship, strike hip using strike missiles and it can be part of air defense system either single or in the group with larger or smaller ships.

In the first reports I already pointed out the absolutely positive atmosphere regarding the comments to the event and the mood of the people which gathered at the shipyards. Nevertheless, because it is important and contrary to very recent times I want to emphasize this again. There were plenty of the phrases like "the ship of the 21 st century". Of course, most was said for media, but it makes a difference when the authoritative people do it with pleasure. Admiral Zakharenko, for example, expressing his gratefulness to the shipbuilders of Severnaya Verf three times with different tone said "thank you". It sounded like a very old man thanks somebody very young for doing something which was very easy for the latter.

The head of AS V. Alexandrov sounded like a coach patronizing a young and talented player: "Everything is OK, it is necessary just to go out to the sea, to go out to the sea and everything will be OK".

Some of the phrases mentioned by the shipbuilding managers at the ceremony were later on indirectly proved by the media's reports from the top level. For example, Mr. Kormilitsin said that the heads of the shipyards and plants had been informed of the decision of the president to form the integrated structures in civil, military and science. This is the confirmation to the conclusion which it was possible to make carefully following the open reports.

Interesting phrase was "preserving the cooperation in the west and in the east of the country". In fact it proves that "regional integration" which has been very little commented so far is really in the minds of the people responsible for the reforms. This approach is, probably, the latest which came on surface and the ceremonies at AS and SV were the excellent opportunity to conclude that "there is no smoke without fire".

The same conclusion is still more valid keeping in mind the other phrase in another context: "St. Petersburg is, of course, the center of civilization, but Far East exists as well, and there exist shipbuilders and ship repair...". This is also substantial proof for expecting regional developments.

And again, it is worthwhile paying attention to the phrases which describe the mood of the people who are going to pass through the reforms they speak about. "It is pleasant to hear that this decision was finally taken" (the head of AS V. Alexandrov). He and others were totally positive.

Right after the two ceremonies the notorious newspaper Kommersant hurried to publish a big article claiming that the construction of the 20380 ships is lagging behind, has too many corrections etc. May be, but at the ceremony it was mentioned that rates of construction fit in the schedule and meet the demands of the Navy. 2 – carefully 3 years for new ship may be questionable for someone, but for Russian conditions this is absolutely expectable rates and it suits the need for the moment.

There is another worthy phrase bout the ship. "There is no doubt that very soon the arms will be new, but 20380 is ready for these arms. It is built according to the module principle and it is designed to change arms".

Officers and specialists are already studying how to operate this class of ship. On one of the photos of our report from the ceremony there were the future commanders of the ship and sub laid down. According to the designers the ship has systematic approach: simulators, training of crews on board and in the plant etc.

There is one phrase of the deputy commander Zaharenko, which does not fit in the system of information which has been available so far. And unfortunately it was impossible to ask what he meant. Speaking about the role of the 20380 corvette in the Russian Navy he said "the series will be big, it will be big". What is "big" remained unclear. He was more certain about the manufacturers. According to him SV were, are, and will be the head plant for this kind of ships and for this corvette. OK, that is most clear and simple.

The deputy presidential plenipotentiary in the North-West region of Russia Mikhail Motsak (although in the beginning he spoke in the presence of Zaharneko) was a bit more precise. It was a bit funny interrogation of him, which he had together with Sergey from Interfax. Skipping the formulations of the kind to get away from the question like "the Navy is built according to the tasks", "what we can and what we need", "the maximum task is demonstration of the flag in all regions" it was possible to here from him that Russian navy expects 7 ships of this class in each fleet (excluding Caspian Flotilla). Then in the course of long dialog there were minor "corrections" and other formulations, which, however, "were from the same opera". Others are: "How many we need - enough for universal defense". "Roughly speaking maybe 5, maybe 8". "Ships' unit, "soedienenie", full fledged tactical unit 5-7 ships".

The official spent some time trying to make us think that the regional and federal authorities do a lot to supervise the steadiness of financing. It was also his phrase that the State Arms Program was corrected, and most importantly it has right (full and timely) financing behind any item mentioned there.

The point which we have been following in the past couple of years got very good answer. In as long as two minutes time te-a-tet it was impossible to make this official to give proof to the doubts that "if all of a sudden Russian Navy starts financing everything and export contracts come in the same time, there will be a shortage of production facilities". When a person of this rank uses phrases like "out of the question", "never", "on the contrary" it is difficult not to believe. More over, speaking about the availability of the production capacities M. Mottsak said that we should bother not about losing production capacities, but about losing "cooperations" (traditional partnerships of the plants involved in the same big project). "Cooperations" need at least this level of financing", otherwise they will switch over to other products. And also the "abundance of the production capacities" was referred to all major shipyards – BZ, SV, AS, Sevmash and Zvezdochka. For the time being this question can be regarded as answered.