One of the biggest mysteries of this year may well be the story of the production of Zubr-class hovercraft in Feodosia. To be precise, the mystery is not at the beginning of production, which many did not expect, given the fact that the shipyard "More" was inoperative for a long time, but in its collapse. Now let's talk about everything in order.
Last fall, the state-owned company Ukrspetsexport signed an extremely lucrative contract with China for the supply of Zubr-class ships. According to official data, the amount of the contract was $ 350 million, and the Feodosia plant "More" was chosen as the main enterprise for fulfilling the order. It should be noted that the 52-meter workshop of the More plant is truly unique. This huge assembly site was serviced by 2 special overhead cranes, each with a lifting capacity of 50 tons. They jointly lifted a hovercraft weighing 95 tons.
The reason why the execution of the order was entrusted to the "More" plant lies in the history of the production of high-speed amphibious assault hovercraft of the "Zubr" type. As you know, only six states were capable of designing and building such ships in the world: Australia, England, New Zealand, Canada, the USA and the USSR. In our country, production was carried out only at two enterprises - the aforementioned plant "More" and the Leningrad Central Design Bureau "Almaz".
Over the past decades, the production base near Feodosia looked like bare, scorched earth. The plant stood without orders, everything that could only be dismantled was stolen from its territory. They even dismantled the access railway line. The best engineers and workers left to work in Russia. It is impossible to blame them for this, since in St. Petersburg a milling shipbuilder who came from the Crimea received more than $ 2,000, which by Ukrainian standards is simply an exorbitant salary.
But at the end of autumn 2010, everything changed dramatically. Many shipbuilders leave the prosperous Petersburg and return to their native Feodosia. At the More plant, work began to boil; two hovercraft under Project 12322 were laid down for the Chinese. The Zubr-class high-speed amphibious ship is designed to carry out an amphibious assault on any coast and its further fire support. It is capable of transporting goods weighing up to 150 tons, including three tanks and 140 people of the landing group. It can move at a speed of about 120 km / h on water, ice, land and overcome various obstacles with a height of 1.5 meters. Equipped with five independent gas turbines. Serial production of gas turbine generators for Zubrov is carried out at the Zarya-Mashproekt plant located in Nikolaev.
The most important thing in this story is that, in accordance with the concluded contract, the Chinese received unique technical documentation at their disposal. The fact that the top leadership of China was interested in the deal is confirmed by the fact that they even agreed to pay a significant part of the debts of the Ukrainian plant "More".
An order from China would provide Crimeans with work for at least the next five years. What follows is unknown, but one can be completely sure that, having received the necessary technical documentation, the Chinese will begin production of the Zubrs on their own.
One of the ships ordered under the contract was already at the stage of readiness when an emergency occurred that turned everything upside down. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea: "When the ship's hull was moved by two bridge cranes, one of them was destroyed and subsequently fell." To date, this is all the official information from the More plant, but there is data received from the workers of the plant themselves.
According to the statement, the cranes did not start working at the same time, and the structure fell due to the resulting overload. At the same time, it is difficult to accept or refute this version. The crane driver, a 60-year-old woman, died in the rubble. All her life she worked at the enterprise as a welder and only recently retrained as a crane operator. In addition to the crane operator, an elderly collector of ship hulls died, whose skull was blown off by a bursting cable. The 38-year-old worker was taken to hospital with broken legs and several others sustained minor injuries.
Today, the first of four Zubrs, destined for China, continues to hang from the surviving girder crane. Installed armor plates flew off the ship hanging in the air, and a significant deformation of the hull occurred. The plant workers report that they cannot lower it down because of the danger of breaking the cables and the collapse of the surviving crane-beam - "there are no suicides among us."
A similar tragedy at the Feodosia shipbuilding company "More" happened for the first time. The main trouble is that during the fall of the crane there was a significant deformation of the supporting structures of the main building of the workshop. If we look at the shop from the outside, then it seems to be intact, but upon internal inspection it becomes clear that it is unsuitable for further operation. In fact, this is the collapse of a unique production.
In Feodosia, a state interdepartmental commission began to work to establish the causes of the accident. At the same time, the company does not exclude that in the near future the Chinese side will demand to pay a penalty and even terminate the contract. Indeed, why pay huge sums of money to Ukrspetsexport if you can make Zubrs yourself? According to unofficial data, the Chinese received all the necessary technical documentation for the project ahead of schedule. Most of the engineering personnel of SK "More" are already working in China, where a similar plant is being built at an intensive pace.
In addition to Ukraine, Russia was striving to get the contract for Zubrs for the PRC with all its might, even offering the Chinese alternative options. Negotiations on this issue between Russia and China have been conducted over the past ten years, but have ended in vain. According to one of the unofficial versions, the reason for the ineffectiveness of the negotiations was the intransigence of the main developer - Almaz Central Design Bureau. According to this version, the residents of St. Petersburg agreed to transfer to China the documentation for the landing ship only after the delivery of 10-15 Zubr ships of their own production.
On the other hand, it can be assumed that the Russian top leadership was not interested in selling technology to neighboring China for the production of a unique ship that could change the military parity in the Far Eastern region. For example, "Bison" is a real nightmare for the neighboring unyielding Taiwan. They can be quite effectively applied in possible border disputes with Russia itself.
Having received a refusal from Russia, Beijing quickly and, most importantly, effectively reached an agreement with Kiev. This was another success for Ukraine in the field of arms production and export, which undoubtedly caused a nervous reaction in Russia. Today many people call the disaster in Feodosia beneficial both for the Almaz Central Design Bureau and for Russia as a whole.
Based on the above information, a clear triangle emerges: in one corner of it Ukraine with its unique production, in the other Russia with its unwillingness to provide the rival with unique technologies and in the third China, which received everything that was needed, namely technical documentation and specialists, and, as a result, he does not show any desire to pay money, and they will more than return all the funds that were invested in the form of a forfeit.
