SSV-33 "Ural"

During the Cold War , in the era of confrontation between two world centers - the USSR and the USA , the warring parties sought opportunities to gain access to a variety of strategic information about the "likely enemy", while hiding their own secrets.

One of these secrets was a missile test site in the South Pacific , which the United States used to launch its ballistic missiles .

The Soviet Union could not sufficiently track the tests of American missiles on the final part of the trajectory: the USSR did not have military bases in the region. The KIK ships of the USSR Ministry of Defense and civilian vessels carrying special control and measuring systems (for example, “ Academician Sergey Korolev ”, “ Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin ” or “ Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov ”) did not have active radars and were intended to operate on domestic space transponders. objects.

Thus, the need arose for a special warship, which would be able to collect the entire amount of available information about any subcosmic object on any part of its trajectory in any region of the globe.

They laid down the Ural BARZK in June 1981 (serial number S-810), launched it in 1983, and on January 6, 1989, the USSR Naval flag was hoisted on a ship.

Ships with a similar name already existed in the Russian and Soviet fleets: the auxiliary cruiser Ural took part in the battle of Tsushima , during the Great Patriotic War, the Ural mine layer was fought in the Baltic . In modern Russia, the Ural border guard patrol serves.

The large nuclear reconnaissance ship "Ural" received tail number SSV-33 . The abbreviation CER served as a cover legend and is deciphered as a “communications vessel” —that is, in the Soviet Navy, reconnaissance ships were openly classified.

There is a version that the basis of the ship of the project 1941 ("Titan") was taken by the hull of the ore carrier . The sources of this opinion probably stem from the fact that, as a rule, telemetry control vessels (for example, “Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin”) were indeed built on this principle.

Also, according to most sources, “Ural” is identical to the TARKR of project 1144 “Orlan ” with its power plant (from which it is often an erroneous conclusion that the “Urals” belong to project 1144).

In addition to the nuclear power plant, the ship was supplied with energy by two KVG-2 boilers operating on fuel oil - in the bow and stern engine rooms. The backup power plant was intended for use in basing places and anchorage sites that do not have energy supply facilities.

Being a warship, the Ural BARZK carried armament - one 76-mm AK-176 M artillery mount in the bow and stern, four six-barrel 30-mm AK-630 artillery mounts and four 12.7-mm Utes rock-mounted machine guns M ". The ship was also equipped with PPDO facilities - 4 installations of the Dozhd complex for firing special depth charges against underwater saboteurs. In addition, the ship had a hangar, which housed the Ka-27 helicopter.

In a massive three - tier superstructure and in spacious masts, numerous military laboratory posts were located.

In total , the ship’s crew consisted of 890 people, of whom at least 400 were officers and midshipmen . The crew of the reconnaissance ship was divided into 6 special services.

The basis of the ship’s electronic equipment was the Coral reconnaissance complex, including two Elbrus computers and several EC-1046 computers.

In 1989, after its entry into operation, the Ural BARZK made a 59-day transition to a permanent place of duty - the Pacific Ocean .

In this campaign, the Ural BARZK was accompanied by a nuclear submarine . On the way, the Ural BARZK stopped at the port of Kamran .

In the Pacific, the Ural BARZK was based in the Pacific village (aka Fokino , known among the sailors as “Texas” and having the postal address “Shkotovo-17” ).

For BARZK Ural , as well as for other large Pacific Fleet ships: TAVKR Minsk and TAVKR Novorossiysk , there was no mooring wall of sufficient size, and therefore most of the time BARZK Ural was on an anchor barrel in Strelok Bay.

The Ural BARZK became the flagship of the 38th Pacific Fleet Intelligence Reconnaissance Brigade. In addition to it, the brigade also included BRZK SSV-80 “Baltic States”, SRZK SSV-208 “Kuriles”, SRZK SSV-391 “Kamchatka”, BRZK SSV-464 “Transbaikalia”, BRZK SSV-465 “Primorye”, SRZK SSV- 468 "Gabriel Sarychev", air defense missile defense system SSV-493 "Asia", air defense missile defense system SSV-535 "Karelia".

Due to numerous breakdowns and accidents, the Ural BARZK never got there, for which it was built - to the Kwajalein Atoll , to the place of the US missile training range, but from the point of its permanent base the Ural BARZK successfully controlled the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, intercepting radio communications in the Navy , Air Force and PLO networks of the USA and Japan .

Even at the test stage, problems in the operation of the ship were revealed: the computer complex, some information collection complexes, did not work correctly. These were the latest developments, the experience of which has not yet been accumulated.

At the same time, during the construction phase, at the Baltic Shipyard , not a single accident occurred on the ship due to the fault of the crew. The only case of a small fire at the gas treatment complex, quickly eliminated by the crew, was due to the fault of the factory welder who performed welding without proper support . The first crew went through serious and lengthy preparations for the operation of such a complex ship.

The problems began after, in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 1989 ^[1] on the exemption of students from military service, almost all highly trained junior conscripts were transferred to the reserve. This affected the general preparedness and competence of the ship's crew. .

Shortly after switching to the Pacific Fleet , in the summer of 1990, a fire broke out at the Ural BARZK , in which one of the auxiliary boilers was disabled: as a result of the fire in the rear engine room, electric cables burned out. For more than a year, the ship was provided with energy only by one boiler, but in the autumn of 1991 it burned down. After that, for several months, emergency diesel generators provided all the energy to the ship. There was no money for repairs in a decaying country .

In 2001, the Ural BARZK , which completed just one military campaign , was finally decommissioned and pinned to a distant pier near the Admiral Lazarev (former Frunze) heavy nuclear missile cruiser.

In April 2008, a tender was held for the disposal of the ship and its nuclear power plant.

Disposal of the ship was carried out ( 2010 ) at the Far Eastern Zvezda plant.

In June 2012, the Director General of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rosatomflot of the Rosatom State Corporation Vyacheslav Ruksha announced his intentions to use the equipment and power plant of the BARZK Ural for the repair of existing nuclear icebreakers. ^[2]

In September 2014, a second tender was announced for the disposal of the Ural BARZK , which was never completed. In February 2016, a recycling tender was announced again, its cost is 1 billion rubles ^[3] . The complexity of disposal is caused by the ship’s weight and size characteristics that exceed the capabilities of Russian shipyards.
On August 21, 2016, at about 7:30 a.m., the SSV-33 or Ural left for the last trip from Abrek Bay to the Zvezda plant .

• Captain 1st Rank Keshkov (1983-1991)
• Captain 2nd rank Yarish (1991-1992)
• Captain 1st rank Tugan-Baranovsky (1992-1995)
• Captain 1st Rank Maksimchuk (1995-1997)
• Captain 1st rank Stukanev (1997-2000)
• Captain 1st Rank Granin (2000-2002)
• Captain 1st rank Bakunets (2002—2011)

• As a civilian, the chief designer of the Ural BARZK , M. A. Arkharov, received the military title of Rear Admiral .
• The ship had a constructional (permanent) roll - 2 degrees to the port side, which was due to a more developed superstructure precisely on the port side. During the transition of the ship to the place of deployment and its location in Strelok Bay before the fire in 1990, this roll was compensated by ship systems - the working gauges of pitching and side rolling, as well as the hull deflection showed a normal state.
• The ship’s reconnaissance equipment included a “ camera ” with a lens diameter of about 1.5 meters.
• BARZK "Ural" - one of the rare ships saved from the dominance of rats. The work of the reconnaissance complex of the ship was detrimental to rodents.
• In 1988, the Ural BARZK was planned to be visited by General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev . For him, they specially painted the ship from the side of the pier, cut off part of the superstructure and put in a gangway, so that it was convenient to climb the third tier. But all this turned out to be in vain: the Secretary General never climbed the ship .
• While stationing in Kamrani, the patrol of the PDS (anti-sabotage service) at the Ural BARZK used a weapon (a special grenade ) against an unknown target in the water near the side of the ship. This target turned out to be a big turtle. The sailor, who was vigilant (by the way, had served only six months by that time), received an extraordinary vacation.
• In 1992, during the fire of the main arsenal of artillery ammunition of the Pacific Fleet, the ship was 1.5-2 km from the ignition site. Despite the huge number of shells and missiles scattered in different directions, thanks to the skillful leadership of Captain 1st Rank commander Keshkov and the selfless actions of the entire crew, not a single shell, missile or fragment fell into the ship. The crew almost under heavy fire, at night, with the support of just one tugboat, brought him to a safe place.
• In 1991, during the loading of ammunition, a box of 76-mm shells disappeared. The ship's commander Keshkov turned to the crew with a request to return the shells subject to incognito . During the day, all the shells were returned, and Keshkov personally thanked the crew for “speakerphone” for each shell brought to his cabin.
• In the fall of 1991, during a powerful storm, the ship tore off the anchor barrel and carried it into the open sea. Tugboats could not go to sea; the standard launch time for ship's vehicles was from an hour to an hour and a half. The immobilized and helpless ship drifted a hundred meters from the rocky coast of Putyatin Island . The next day, the ship’s crew began to receive rations (for example, smoked sausage and condensed milk for breakfast were added), since formally the ship began to be outside the raid, in the open sea.
• There was a suggestion within the ship’s team that the fate of the Ural BARZK was influenced by the connection between the name of the project (“Titan”) and its developer (Design Bureau “Iceberg”). Some explained the fate of the ship with the project number - 1941 .
• BARZK Ural is mentioned in Max Brooks' novel World War Z.

• Communication and control vessel, project 1941 // warships.ru
• Encyclopedia of ships. Ships special. destination. SSV-33 "Ural"
• Ural reconnaissance ship with Coral system
• The fate of the naval superintelligence. The unique nuclear ship "Ural" rusts for 25 years without implementation // Jan 2014
• The Ural cabin carrier will share the fate of Minsk and Novorossiysk
• Floating misfortune of the Soviet fleet // LJ, May 2017
• "Ural" in the Pacific. Satellite image on wikimapia.org
• SSV-33 Project 1941 // globalsecurity.org
• SSV-33 "Ural" - the electronic intelligence reconnaissance ship of the 1941 project code "Titan"