In this story, along with reliable facts, you can not do without a small fraction of logical speculation. I can assure you, justified. Because the situation in which the Snezhnogorsk Nerpa Ship Repair Plant found itself after the Russian-American agreement on the disposal of non-combatable submarines is ambiguous. Last spring, it "played" with such a range of nuances that can only be classified as undercurrents in interstate relations," grimaces " of big politics...

On April 28, 1999, a message from Major Ron Alberto, a representative of the US Strategic Arms Reduction Agency, landed on the desk of Pavel Steblin, Director of the Nerpa SRZ. In it, the head of the recycling project reported that he was contacting Pavel Grigoryevich "because of potentially possible bad news":

"Dear Mr. Steblin, As you probably know, the framework agreement on Joint threat reduction (meaning the "Agreement between the Russian Federation and the United States of America concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation, Storage and Destruction of Weapons and the Prevention of the Proliferation of Weapons" of June 17, 1992 - Author's note) expires on June 17, 1999. We continue to negotiate with the relevant representatives of the Russian Federation to extend this agreement, but so far without much success. If the Agreement expires, all visits of American representatives under the SSM Program (in this case, SSBN disposal, SRH infrastructure modernization, etc. - Author's note) will be suspended, and in all likelihood, contract work will also be ordered to be suspended. As you can see, this issue is very serious...

I am sorry that I have to write to you on this unpleasant subject. I would be grateful in advance if you can exert any influence on your Government in order to direct negotiations on the extension of the framework Agreement on SMS in a positive direction... "

Pavel Grigoryevich ordered to remove copies from the letter and familiarize the plant staff with the text. The news was really bad. The contract, which gave the company a second wind, threatened to sink into oblivion. It was necessary to take urgent measures. But how?

To give the reader an idea of the role of the American contract in the fate of the enterprise, about the Nerpa ship repair plant, its uniqueness and, one might say, its place in the table of ranks of the "defense industry" of the Kola Peninsula, let's turn to the history of the SRZ.

In February 1964. The Government of the USSR decided to build a northern delivery base in the ice-free bay of the Kola Peninsula Kut, and in September of the same year-on the construction of a ship repair enterprise, which received the name "Nerpa" a few years later, and the village of ship repairers Vyuzhny (now the city of Snezhnogorsk).

SRZ "Nerpa", having handed over many repaired submarines to the fleet in less than three decades, enjoyed well-deserved honor and respect among the North Sea submarine fleet, and stood firmly on its feet. But in the early 90's, the state reorganization, and then the entry of Russia into the market, almost threw the "Seal", figuratively speaking, on the drain. The" golden hands " of the enterprise - inveterate polar ship repairers with "roots" in the near abroad-for the most part immediately rushed along historical routes

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fiefdoms. But that's half the trouble. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nerpa was hit by the MOR that undermined the production foundations of the SRZ - a catastrophic drop in the defense order. In the past years, several SF submarines with varying degrees of technological readiness were simultaneously located on the territory of the plant.

Although the work was stressful, Rostislav Rimdenok, chief engineer of Nerpa, recalled in an interview with me, it was interesting and creative. Factory workers felt their importance in the industry system, a necessity for the Navy. But, having passed the next "order" five years ago, the company was at the last line. In order not to completely ruin the fixed assets and unique technologies, a number of workshops, sites, and production facilities were mothballed at Nerpa. What should I do next? Where to go, having a recognized forty-million-dollar debt from the Ministry of Defense and an unrecognized one, that is, on which the enterprise can put an end, in the amount of about 70 million rubles?

"Nerpa" fought for survival as best it could with a single goal...

"Everyone understands that the Navy is the property of our state, but practically nothing is being built for it now," Rostislav Yevgenyevich Rimdenok told me. - In fact, the Navy wears out those boats that are in service. And if we take into account that more than a hundred submarines have already been withdrawn from the Northern Fleet, then over time the utilization component of nuclear submarines will increase immeasurably. But the fleet should still exist, and we are sure that the state will eventually come to the need to build new submarines and repair those in service. And the main task of "Nerpa" is to maintain a high level of professional training of factory workers, SRZ piers, production sites, equipment, power supply of the enterprise, unique technologies, so that when nuclear submarines come to us for repairs, we can meet them "fully armed".

How difficult it was can be judged at least by the fact that by May 1998 the salary arrears at Nerp were 11 months. Strikes have become more frequent. Workers went on hunger strikes in protest against the indifference to their fate and the future of the plant. And now, after a sharp competitive struggle, a more than lucrative contract has dawned on the company.

On June 17, 1992, the "Agreement between the Russian Federation and the United States of America concerning the safe and Reliable transportation, storage and Destruction of Weapons and the prevention of Weapons Proliferation" was signed, which gave birth to the program of US Senators Nunn and Lugar "Interstate Agreement on Reducing Mutual Threats" (sometimes interpreted as "on strategic Arms limitation"). It is in this program, its part concerning the disposal of nuclear submarines, and "climbed" "Nerpa".

The first contracts with the agency for the implementation of contracts of the US Department of Defense, of course, with the participation of the Ministry of Economy, the "chief" of the SRZ, and the Russian Foreign Ministry, Snezhnogorsk enterprise signed in May 1998. They were about the disposal of two Russian SSBNs of the Delta-1 class (according to the NATO classification), withdrawn from the combat fleet, and improving the factory infrastructure with the help of American funds, which made it easier, faster and cheaper to carry out recycling work.

On the" Seal", the Americans did not start from scratch. There was already an unfinished recycling complex, which the Russian Government did not have enough 80-90 million rubles to complete the start-up production line. Prior to that, two multi-purpose submarines had already been piloted at the SRZ. Therefore, "nerpicham" had something to show overseas guests.

The first money for "Nerpa" was received in early August 1998. The amount in foreign currency came from the United States to one of the regional banks. And suddenly the crisis of August 17. "Black" Monday for the whole of Russia was a pleasant surprise for the company: the ruble weight due to the SRH turned out to be significantly more than the factory workers expected. It was enough to fully pay off Nerpa's salary arrears and some loans in the first place. The ship repairmen rolled up their sleeves and set to work...

To understand what happened later, we need to consider the essence of American "initiatives". Recycling operations themselves are unprofitable. All over the world, the cutting of nuclear-powered ships goes on state subsidies. Therefore, those who believe that the Americans will pay for the disposal of more than a hundred submarines withdrawn from the Northern Fleet's combat composition can safely say: "Wake up! You are charmed!.."Overseas benefactors are not interested in all the "fruits" of the forty-year activity of the SF submarine fleet, but in submarines of specific projects. And, of course, a strategic destination. Attempts to squeeze into the contract something from the honored "veterans", for example, "Leninsky Komsomol", rested on the refusal of the Americans: "This submarine is so incapacitated that we do not see the point of investing our dollars in its cutting!.."

The object of the Nunn - Lugar program in the Northern Fleet is the Delta-1 and Delta-2 strategic missile submarines. First of all, their missile compartments, silos, launch complexes. By the way, the Americans initially did not want to pay for cutting more meat. They nodded in the direction of the Norwegians: they, they say, and not we, have your reactors at hand.

The position, however, is quite logical and understandable. For Americans, the main task is to achieve the maximum effect at minimal cost. If we are talking about the elimination of offensive weapons, then the emphasis of the conditions dictated by state experts is mainly shifted in the direction they are interested in. It is interesting to get acquainted with some kind of algorithms for implementing the senatorial program on the "Seal".

SSBNs are brought to the factory and missile silos are opened. In this position, he stands for a while, until NASA satellite monitoring fixes that the boat is actually at the enterprise's berth and there are no missiles in the mines. Then the factory workers remove the covers from the shafts and lay them on the control platform. Again, for viewing from space. After that, the missile silos themselves are dismantled, installed on the pier and cut across. But now that's all: the essential components of strategic weapons have been eliminated. Capitol Hill is calm. You can continue to saw the submarine on the "needles".

But they are calm. What about us?

We understand, the leaders of Nerpa told me, that at first glance, the disposal of nuclear submarines "ordered" from the Americans is a betrayal of Russia, knocking out the power, in particular, of missile sites. But the fleet simply does not have 5-6 million rubles a year for the maintenance and repair of each non-combatant boat. Rye eats not the first "freshness" of nuclear-powered ships, aggravating the problems of ecology, nuclear and radiation safety on the Kola Peninsula.

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Therefore, the plant's specialists believe that when implementing the Nunn - Lugar program, it is necessary to observe a kind of balance of interests.: what the Americans would like to dispose of and what the Navy is no longer able to maintain. The primary task of the "Seal" is to find this compromise between the interests of the Russian Navy and the US Department of Defense, to coordinate controversial issues so that in the end the nomenclature of orders that would satisfy both sides is determined. I note that 30 submarines have already been assigned to the recycling project, divided between the special enterprises of Murmansk and Belomorye.

On April 28 last year, Major Ron Alberto's warning came as a bolt from the blue for the factory workers. For almost a year, ship repairmen regularly followed every letter of interstate contracts, performed the planned volumes of work efficiently and on time, which the Americans paid for on the principle of a fixed de facto day of visiting the enterprise. On June 10, an expert group from the United States was expected to visit Snezhnogorsk, which would result in the signing of new contracts in the light of the Nunn - Lugar program. This means that Nerpa's production capacity will be loaded for at least two years, and the money will be received in a stable manner... And suddenly-a written admonition from the United States to influence the government. Then telephone conversations with Alberto, from which the leadership of "Nerpa" understood that the US Department of Defense had received unequivocal instructions to suspend the implementation of the senator's project, allegedly until the international situation stabilizes.

"But how does the ship repair plant approach the world's problems?" - we guessed at the enterprise and could not understand anything. The Seal was in danger of disaster. Something had to be done urgently. And the ship repairmen decided to influence, turned to the then President of Russia Yeltsin with a letter, which was signed on behalf of Snezhnogorets by the Governor of the Murmansk region Yuri Evdokimov. Similar messages were sent to the Prime Minister, the State Duma, the Federation Council, etc.

"The implementation of contracts signed by the Nerpa SRZ with the Strategic Arms Reduction Agency of the US Department of Defense in May 1998 within the framework of the OSV-1 interstate Agreement between Russia and the United States of America," the appeal said, " made it possible, against the background of the difficult economic situation in the country and the Murmansk region, to significantly solve the issues of production loading. from the defining enterprises of the region. It made real progress in solving the long-standing environmental problem of the Kola Peninsula, associated with the growing number of nuclear submarines with unloaded nuclear fuel withdrawn from the Navy's combat service. The implementation of the Nunn-Lugar program increased the plant's production and technological capacity by putting into operation high-performance American recycling equipment, reduced the cost of maintaining non-operational submarines for the Northern Fleet, and freed up qualified officers to solve combat tasks on operational ships...

However, in May of this year, the Americans reported that work on previously concluded contracts should be stopped as of June 17, 1999 - the expiration date of the " Agreement between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on safe and reliable transportation, storage and destruction of weapons and prevention of proliferation of weapons." At the request of the American side, the legal and financial bases of recycling operations are disappearing.

The signing of new contracts (planned earlier for May-August of this year) practically depends on the extension of the Agreement for the subsequent period... stabilization of the international political and military situation, as well as relations between Russia and the United States at the state level... "

And these relations noticeably cooled down at that time. NATO got into Kosovo. Russia has condemned the NATO aggression. Our country has gained supporters. The myth of the purity of overseas "peacemaking" thoughts has burst at the seams. The Russians needed to be hobbled urgently. But how? Probably to push, to frighten economically. Like, so that they don't bury themselves, remember their place... Therefore, in my opinion, the letter addressed by the representative of the US Department of Defense to the director of the Nerpa SRZ Pavel Steblin is nothing more than an implicit attempt to warn, and perhaps even force, our government to give compensation. So it was or otherwise, it is difficult to judge. The Pentagon was silent about the reasons...

However, here the overseas experts, apparently, miscalculated. Let's see who loses the most if we, figuratively speaking, "spit up" at the interstate level. For example, the following contracts of the Nerpa SRZ with the Americans, when signed, provide for the disposal of five more Delta-1 SSBNs, read-60 missile silos. We can wait to cut them up. But the Americans probably can't: the implementation of OSV-1 is followed by OSV-2. So is it worth exchanging a breakthrough in the fight to reduce the nuclear standoff for the passions around Kosovo? I think there was a lot to think about across the ocean.

In my opinion, Ron Alberto's letter to the US Department of Defense was assigned, by analogy with football, the role of a "last - ditch foul": it will work - it will not work, it will burn out-it will not burn out. The time of its active impact on the "Seal", as one of the subjects of the Russian defense industry, was extremely short. For one reason only: the initiative to create conditions for resolving the crisis in the Balkans has begun to slip out of the hands of NATO. I think that by mid-May of last year, the message of the US Defense Strategic Arms Reduction Agency to the polar enterprise turned into a document for the historical archive or the Nerpa Museum without any subsequent "potentially bad news". This was publicly announced in the May issues of the Washington Post and the Houston Chronicle

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American columnist Charles Krauthammer: "The Clinton administration is frantically looking for a way out of the Balkan crisis. This withdrawal will take the form of a diplomatic agreement. For the administration, this will be a capitulation with elements that allow you to save face. And a peace agreement will be signed with the mediation of Russia. Where does this come from? From the conciliatory stance that the Clinton administration has adopted towards Russia. Starting with the moment when Prime Minister Primakov deployed his plane over the Atlantic, Russia... It expelled representatives of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from Moscow. She loudly supported Milosevic. She sent a spy ship to spy on the US Navy. It threatened to start selling weapons to Yugoslavia. She boycotted the NATO summit in Washington. This is a strange position for a beggar (and most of Primakov's canceled visit should have been devoted to loud shaking of the donation cup).

How does the administration respond to this? With surprising delicacy. Flattering references to Russia's constructive role appear in all the President's speeches. Secretary Albright drops everything and rushes to meet Igor Ivanov in Oslo. The demand for the introduction of NATO forces in Kosovo has been replaced by the demand for the introduction of "international forces" (with the participation of Russia, of course). A high-ranking official was sent to Russia to meet with Chernomyrdin.

You don't have to be an experienced codebreaker to read the secret message contained in all of Clinton's actions. It is addressed to Russia: "Help us out of this situation! We will pay well!" Whatever the details of the NATO agreement with Milosevic, the winners and losers have already been determined: NATO will leave, Kosovars will never return to where they lived before Clinton's Balkan adventure. And the Russians? The Russians, renowned as diplomats and intermediaries, will be rewarded for their service. They will pocket several billion dollars, which will be transited through Moscow to Swiss banks. Russia's voice in NATO, weakened after 1991, will grow louder. Its influence in the councils of NATO and the EU will increase (if by that time something remains of NATO)... "

Of course, Mr. Krauthammer in the article does not directly indicate how close, and most importantly, dear to the US government and their military department are the problems of the Snezhnogorsk "Seal", Severodvinsk "Sevmash Enterprises" and "Zvezdochka", monoliths of the Russian defense complex in other cities of the country. I don't know about anyone, but it seems to me that the American columnist reads this list between the lines. Therefore, I dare to assume: as such, there was no threat to the extension of the agreement between the Russian Federation and the United States "on safe and reliable transportation, storage and destruction of weapons and prevention of weapons proliferation" and the Nunn - Lugar program. Maybe they just wanted to scare us. If this version is not far from the truth, then the Snezhnogorets were worried in vain. The subsequent course of events, in my opinion, testifies to this.

The first step was taken by the Americans, who fully paid for Nerpa to perform the disposal work as of June 17, 1999. Then, so that the plant owners, and probably the Russian Government, would not believe that the warnings from overseas were empty, the United States paused, and theatrically. Like, we will think for a long time... Even US congressmen flew to the Arctic to make a conclusion for the United States government about the feasibility of further funding for the Nunn - Lugar program, as they were assured. And all this happened, note, in June-July of last year, when, according to Pavel Sazhinov, a member of the Federation Council, "The agreement between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on safe and reliable transportation, storage and destruction of weapons and prevention of weapons proliferation" was already extended and all contracts previously concluded within its framework were subject to renewal. mandatory execution. Moreover, according to interested parties, the US government, traditionally starting the fiscal year in the country on July 1, allegedly cut the currency "allowance" of joint "disarmament" programs with Russia related to other enterprises of our "defense industry" associated with the recycling program with the US Department of Defense by 15-20%. And the released funds were transferred for the implementation of recycling projects, in particular Nanna-Lugar. So was it worth breaking spears about the "Seal"?

Big politics, apparently, has its own laws. The visit to the overseas contract group's ship repair facility scheduled for August 13 did not take place. The Americans postponed it for the third time. The next rendezvous was postponed to September. At the plant, the well-established production rhythm of recycling operations over the past year and a half threatened to give a serious failure. But in early September in Moscow, representatives of the Agency for Strategic Arms Reduction of the US Department of Defense still signed subsequent contracts with snezhnogorets. The implementation of the Nunn - Lugar program has received another boost...

Today, a center for the disposal of nuclear submarines is being created on the basis of Nerpa, where issues of unloading spent nuclear fuel, conditions for its storage and further shipment for processing will be comprehensively resolved. Much attention will be paid to the storage conditions of the cut-out nuclear submarine reactor compartments. The birth of the center goes not only on overseas "donations". In 2000, the state defense order for the disposal of nuclear-powered ships amounted to more than 800 million rubles. For comparison purposes: three years ago, this amount was zero. In total, about 50 nuclear submarines are planned to be disposed of in Russia this year.

In February, "Nerpa" was once again visited by representatives of the American Agency for Strategic Arms Reduction of the US Department of Defense. Ron Alberta, Project Manager for the disposal of Russian nuclear missile submarines, and Pavel Steblin, SRZ Director, discussed the results of their joint activities.

"I want to tell you with pride," Major Alberta said in an interview, "that both my superiors in Washington and representatives of the US Congress who visited the plant are deeply satisfied with the Seal: it performs its work with honor and on time.

"We are already looking to the future," Pavel Grigoryevich Steblin continued. - We are thinking about how to solve the problem of disposing of non-combatant multi-purpose submarines, which are much more numerous in comparison with strategists. And the extended hand of the American side, the US Department of Defense, of course, pleases us...

Captain of the 3rd rank Sergey Vasiliev, permanent correspondent of the magazine" Orientir " for the Northern Fleet

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