Admiralty shipyard

Admiralty shipyard

The company that transformed Russia into a great sea power

Admiralty Shipyard is one of the oldest shipbuilding companies in Russia, and the first industrial plant in St. Petersburg. Today it is the main production center of non-atomic submarines in Russia.

  • 27
    may
    1703

    St. Petersburg
    was founded

  • 16
    november
    1704

    Establishment
    of the shipyard

As conceived by Peter I, the shipyard constructions were meant to be a semblance of a fortress protecting Petersburg from invasion by sea and land.

300 years
2600 ships

More than 2,600 ships have
gone down the admiralty stocks
in just over three centuries.

Peasant Efim Nikonova’s ‘Secret Vessel’, the first Russian submarine, was built and tested at Admiralty Shipyard.

In 1719 a 29 year old illiterate peasant named Efim Prokopievich Nikonov filed a petition addressed to Peter I. In it Nikonov proposed that “he will make a vessel worthy for military action which will be able sink at least ten to twenty enemy ships on calm seas by means of a projectile, and construct a prototype of this vessel.” The same letter said that this vessel “will move through the water in secret”.

Tsar Peter saw extraordinary benefits in this invention for the state and took Nikonov in his office in person. Believing in the feasibility of the idea, the tsar ordered work on the project to start immediately and in secrecy. On January 31st of that year the Admiralty Board issued the decree: “Send Peasant Efim Nikonov to the office of Major General Golovin to have a model of the vessel made." Nikonov developed his submarine in the subsequent years. Unfortunately, his work did not pay off. Later on, studies continued under the authority of Catherine I.

were built In total in St. Petersburg during the life of Peter I
  • 23

    ships-of-
    the-line

  • 2

    bomb
    vessels

  • 4

    frigates

  • 200

    galleys

  • 8

    prams

The legendary corvette Vityaz, which made a three-year trip round the world, and the cruiser Aurora, a symbol of St. Petersburg, were both built from the specs of the engineers of the Admiralty Shipyard. The Great Victory of 1945 would have hardly been possible without this company. During the Great Patriotic War the seamen of all four Soviet fleets fought the Petersburg masters’ ships - submarines, armored ships and Sea Hunters.

300

nuclear and diesel-
electric submarines

Over 300 nuclear and diesel-electric submarines, which is equivalent to 60 of Poland’s submarine fleets, have been built in the stocks of Admiralty Shipyard.

Today the area of the shipyards is 17 hectares, making it comparable to a housing development outside Moscow. The enterprise is working at full capacity as the shipyards are fulfilling a number of foreign and domestic contracts.
Admiralty Shipyard JSC is one of the largest industrial enterprises in St. Petersburg.

When the number of production staff is 0.4% of total employment in the city’s industry, the shipyard enable the creation of nearly 1% of the region’s GDP.

1%

of the region’s
GDP

Admiralty
Shipyard