The state of the military-technical potential is assessed not only by the untimely arrival of new types of equipment and weapons to the troops. In the context of reform, the issues of high-quality repair and maintenance of what we have come to the fore. This is especially true for the material part of the Navy and its ship repair base. The latter, judging by the journalistic investigation conducted by our correspondent in the Northern Fleet, turned out to be, to put it mildly, not quite ready for the new economic conditions.

The disastrous state of the domestic "defense industry" has long been a byword. At the same time, the main reason for all the troubles of the military-industrial complex is the lack of state orders for defense enterprises in the required volumes against the background of obvious underfunding of existing tasks. But as usual, in a complex and rather confusing situation - and it is in this position that the shipyards of the Arctic Region are under the blows of the market element-only the visible part of the entire iceberg of problems is heard and seen. It is significant in this regard to consider the current situation and operating conditions at one of the largest military enterprises in the region - Roslyakov Ship Repair plant, once the flagship of ship repair business not only on the Kola Peninsula.

The market comes - specialists leave

...Even somewhat surprisingly, the relative well-being of Roslyakov residents lasted even during the so-called reform period, which, however, confirms the solid safety margin of the Roslyakov SRZ. However, since ' 96, the company's production began to decline dramatically. It is known that ship repair financing (the main source of income for self-supporting SRH) is a separate item in the budget of the Ministry of Defense (repair of weapons and military equipment). And two or three years ago, the once full-flowing money "river" began to become catastrophically shallow.

All this immediately affected the fate of the plant and its workers. And it is clear that not in the best way. For example, in 1997, SRH planned 39 billion rubles from the budget estimate of the Ministry of Defense. In six months, the plant has generated (read-earned) 33-36 billion rubles. But the government sequester passed. As a result, SRH left 16 billion rubles to pay for completed orders. Because of this, the rhythm of work was disrupted, pre-planned orders were not received, and as a result, the losses incurred by Roslyakov SRZ from sequestration amounted to about 12 billion non-denominated rubles. Ship repairmen did not receive a full salary for twelve months. The factory management, of course, whenever possible paid people crumbs, so to speak, to maintain their pants. Nevertheless, the SRH has lost about a third of the highly qualified specialists who took decades to train. Workers ,the "golden hands" of the military-industrial complex, rushed in droves to the not yet fully occupied labor market in search of a stable piece of bread.

But this is still, we can say, "flowers" in comparison with the fact that today fines and penalties on the debt of Roslyakovsky SRH to the pension fund alone are 6 times higher than the payments themselves. The company's accounts are blocked. But in order for the plant to live and work, ship repairers are forced to buy everything that provides the production process for cash.

- Of course, we "extract" some finances from debtors through the courts, - Captain Aram Harutyunyan, director of the Roslyakovsky SRH, told me. - But from the" top " immediately comes the command:

"Give the money to pay the workers." I agree. But if you give all the money for a salary today, then tomorrow no one will see it at all: it doesn't fall from the sky.

In addition, in order for ship repairmen to receive stable wages in the current economic conditions, factories need to be competitive in the supply-demand market. And here, in my opinion, lies the most important paradox, which clearly demonstrates the tragicomic situation when the "factory in uniform" tries on a crimson jacket. After all, it's no secret that in the market the pan is the one who has the goods both better and cheaper. And the reorganization experiments with the SRZ of the Navy, unfortunately, so far come down to only one thing: they say, the market will judge everyone. The picture is bleak. If, according to the company's management, in the" stagnant time " the military SRZ in the Arctic provided ship repair of the Northern Fleet by 26 percent, today this figure (from the report of technical management specialists at the Military Council of the SF) varies somewhere in the range of 6 percent. There were more than enough reasons for this. And first of all, economic reasons. The entry of the SRH into the market was given to ship repairmen (and still is) with great blood.

One of the ways out of this situation, according to Captain of the 1st rank Harutyunyan, is considered to be the unification of all SRH into one enterprise. What will follow?

Even a somewhat competent economist knows that the main component of the order price is the cost of fixed assets, enterprise funds (buildings, structures, equipment, etc.). So, if you combine Roslyakovsky SRZ and Murmansk "Northern Sea Route", the cost of production of such a" monster "will be 1.9 times higher than it costs today on the"North - Sea route". After all, the combined funds of enterprises will be divided into units of production, and this, in turn, will increase the cost of the order and affect the competitiveness of the products of the Roslyakovsky SRZ. It will increase by 2.8 times at the rate of one doc-hour. In short, if today an enterprise repairs 3 ships for a certain amount, then tomorrow, in the case of a possible merger, for the same money by the same people and for the same time - only one ship. Both fixed assets and SRH overhead costs will not allow changing the picture for the better. So who, the ship repairmen ask rhetorically, benefits from a "unifying" solution to the problem of polar military ship repair? When answering this question, it is useful to make an excursion into history.

Project of the XXI century

Roslyakov Ship Repair Plant of the Russian Navy specializes in carrying out all kinds of dock operations: complete repairs of the ship's hull, its bottom-outboard fittings, propeller and steering group, and cleaning the ship's bottom from fouling. By the way, the capabilities of a multi-profile enterprise in this regard are truly unique. According to Aram Harutyunyan, the director of the SRH, Captain of the 1st rank, there is no longer such a dock repair in Russia at any of the ship repair plants of the Navy...

What is even one large floating dock PD-50 worth? Its displacement is 60 thousand tons, its length is about 400 meters. To date, there is no ship in the Russian Federation that could not fit in the"fifty kopecks". There are no analogues of the PD-50 in the European part of Russia. The aircraft-carrying cruisers "Kiev" and "Admiral Gorshkov" passed through its keel blocks, the heavy nuclear-powered missile cruisers "Admiral Ushakov" and "Admiral Nakhimov", the TAVKR "Admiral Kuznetsov of the Fleet of the Soviet Union" and the TARKR "Peter the Great" will also dock only in PD-50.

Fifteen or twenty years ago, the party leadership of the country had great views on the Roslyakovsky ship repair plant. Judge for yourself: in comparison with other Arctic SRZS of the Navy, the enterprise is located closest to the exit from the Kola Bay. In the water area adjacent to the plant, there is no such accumulation of vessels as, for example, in Murmansk. And most importantly, the Roslyakovsky SRZ is equipped with deep-water berths, which can be used to deliver a ship of any displacement. Probably, all this together was the reason that in the early eighties there was a decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the gradual transfer of the military ship repair base of the Murmansk region to the enterprise in Roslyakovo. The Soviet government allocated a huge amount of money for the implementation of the project. And on the territory of the SRZ, they began to fill up the embankment, blow up the rock...

It was assumed that there will be a dry and covered dock of the XXI century, which has no analogues in the world to this day. It was planned to do everything in it: starting from the dock repair of a ship of any class and ending with the alignment of propeller shafts and the replacement of reactors on nuclear cruisers and submarines.

Until 1985, ship repairers spent a lot of money, prepared the necessary technical documentation, worked out the zero construction cycle, and built the hull of the shop block. This was the beginning of a bright future not only for the Northern Fleet's military ship repair, but also for the entire ship repair industry in the Kola Arctic. However, Roslyakov's plans did not come true. Perestroika came, and the grandiose project failed...

However, already in the era of rapid changes, "the phoenix rose from the ashes." However, in a completely different guise. Fortune smiled at a related production owned by another department - the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry of the Russian Federation. The name "pampered fate" is PO "Northern Machine-building Enterprise".

Features of national lobbying

In 1993, the collapse of conversion put the named production association on the verge of survival. But the situation changed dramatically after visiting Sevmash by Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

After the visit of the distinguished guest, the Ministry of Industry and Industry, together with Sevmash, began to "break through" the construction of a comprehensive dry dock in the government, an analogue of the one that was planned to be built at the Roslyakovsky SRZ twenty years ago. The director of the latter repeatedly reported to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, to the General Staff, that if there was such a need, then wouldn't it be more appropriate to restart the construction of the dock in Roslyakovo? After all, the company has passed the zero cycle, prepared all the necessary technical documentation, that is, huge amounts of money have already been invested in the project. And today or tomorrow, a radically different solution to the "dock" issue may be born.

- Of course, the Ministry of Food Industry has a big lobby, - the director of the SRH told me with sadness in his voice. - In the market conditions, they are ready to crush everyone. We (probably referring to the Navy Ship Repair Department. - Ed.), unfortunately, we do not have such lobbying at the "top"...

In a similar market battle, another ship repair plant of the Russian Navy, Sevmorput, clashed with Sevmash. For more than five years, the heavy aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov has been moored at its berth. There are no funds to carry out the necessary work. But for the same work, on the same ship, they, it turns out, can be found at colleagues from the Ministry of Food Industry. As you can already guess, the "Admiral Gorshkov" was seriously targeted by colleagues of the Northern Machine-building Enterprise. And their efforts were not in vain. Sevmash won the tender. But curiously, neither Roslyakovsky SRZ nor Sevmorput received an invitation to participate in the competition.

Therefore, it is perfectly possible to imagine the internal state of directors of ship repair plants of the Navy, who need to ensure that enterprises do not die, load production facilities, and provide work for thousands of people...

And the incident with Sevmash, in my opinion, more than clearly demonstrated that market relations are not kind. Here, figuratively speaking ," who dared-that and ate", and "who is a friend-that do not beat". Therefore, it is difficult for factories "in uniform", which have worked for decades in the conditions of the military command system, to "unwind" in the new economic environment.

"There are some issues that need to be solved at commercial risk," said Captain 1st Rank Harutyunyan. "This is life! And I take a risk, although I am well aware that, God forbid ,I will "burn out" even for a penny, they will make me an "enemy of the people".

Everyone is talking about the market economy and conversion rates. But do ship repair companies need conversion today? And if so, in what form? As before: making pots? They did it! We hit the conversion rate in order to bring at least some penny to the cash register of the SRZ, and then use it to feed the ship repairman. But it is impossible to convert specialized enterprises in one fell swoop to produce, for example, aluminum spoons on software-controlled machines!..

The position of the heads of ship repair plants in this case is as follows: they agree to develop auxiliary technological areas (as an additional financial "recharge" of enterprises), but with the mandatory preservation of the main production at the SRH. For example, the Roslyakov plant has organized a site for the production of triplex glass for passenger cars of both domestic and foreign production, armored glass for banking institutions. We started working in powder metallurgy. This is a new case in the Murmansk region, so Roslyakov residents plan to become"trendsetters" among SRH residents.

Production of conversion products in today's conditions is first of all an opportunity to preserve the working personnel of the SRH, at least earn something to maintain fixed assets.

The "golden price" of a conversion needle

If we talk about principled approaches, then the directors of military factories want more. For example, the State Duma should adopt a package of laws on the tax system to protect domestic producers. Then ships and vessels of domestic fleets (military and civilian) will be forced to return to Russian ports for repairs. They want enterprises that fulfill the defense order to receive benefits for the taxation of profits and property. Finally, they want to participate in military-technical cooperation with foreign countries on the basis of direct contracts with the transfer of foreign currency earnings to the income of enterprises on the nomenclature of weapons and military equipment, types of works and services that are the subject of their production activities. After all, in the end, they decided to grant military factories the right to carry out repairs and other work on ships belonging to foreign customers on their own territory. And there are already precedents for this in Murmansk, Severodvinsk, and Snezhnogorsk...

Of course, not everything in the claims of business leaders today should be accepted unconditionally. They themselves are well aware of this: the economic situation in the country is far from one that draws benefits from a cornucopia. Over time, it is likely that all this can become real. In the meantime, ship repairers rely only on one thing: stable financing of military SRH at least during the transition period of entry into the market. After all, not everything was considered competitive when creating a fleet repair base in the Arctic. For example, the plant, which is run by Captain 1st Rank Vladimir Stern, specializes in the repair of rocket and artillery weapons of ships of the Northern Fleet. The company is unique in its tasks. But today the plant's account is blocked, the tax burden is stifling, plus fines and penalties are accrued, wages are issued with a three-to four-month delay. That is why the "golden hands" - high-class workers-leave the plant. By the way, this was the main reason that the optical section where periscopes for submarines were repaired "ordered to live long" at the enterprise.

"This year," Vladimir Yuryevich told me, " the navy did not give a single hour of loading on the optical part. People were forced to resign. And if the submarine's periscope suddenly fails, as I know there have already been such precedents, then no one will be able to" reanimate " it in the entire north-west of Russia. Therefore, I declare with full responsibility that all our troubles and problems are caused by chronic interruptions in funding. The number of specialists remaining at the plant, of course, is still able to raise production to the level necessary for the fleet, given the availability of money. Otherwise, the next year for the enterprise (yes, I think, and for other SRH) is not visible either in economic or in any other plan. In general, with such an attitude towards us, the Northern Fleet risks entering the third millennium without ship repair...

In April 1998, in the presence of representatives of the Government of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Defense, and heads of Navy enterprises, a meeting of the Military Council of the Navy was held to discuss the issue of reforming the repair network. According to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Vladimir Kursendov, "The Navy can and is ready to become a zone for an experiment in the system of the Armed Forces on the issue of reforming the repair base."

After a detailed study of all the options, the Navy working group concluded that the most promising option is to reform the Navy's ship repair plants by creating a holding company. According to experts, the holding will be able to write off and repay its debts through mutual settlements, attracting foreign orders and investments, as well as making extensive use of loans. Of course, the transition to corporatization of the ship repair system will require a consistent study of all elements, revision of organizational and legal acts. And here we can not do without the adoption of relevant resolutions by the Russian Government. But in general...

According to the commander of the Northern Fleet, Admiral Oleg Yerofeyev, the right decision was made at the Military Council of the Navy.

- Due to the fact that the loading of factories by orders of the Navy, in particular the Northern Fleet, continues to be low,- said Oleg Alexandrovich in an interview, - the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy gave more freedom to these factories: they are allowed to manufacture products for the national economy, repair ships of other departments, including foreign ones. And I think that ship repair plants will still find their place in the market and ways of existence and survival. Perhaps even prosperity in the context of economic reform.

So the experiment continues...

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