Television is promoting First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov against the backdrop of, unfortunately, few achievements in science and industry. The strategic nuclear submarine Yuri Dolgoruky, launched from a workshop in Severodvinsk on Sunday, is an undoubted achievement of this kind, despite all the complaints about this project. The main complaint is the lack of a tested weapon for this submarine, the Bulava missile, the last three launches of which were unsuccessful.

The developer of the rocket, General Designer of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering Yuri Solomonov, in a recent interview with the newspaper “VPK” complained about the collapse of production cooperation and the supply of low-quality materials by related companies as the main risks that prevent the creation of the rocket. Solomonov also complained about the lack of an effective system for managing the state defense order – thanks to the rapid restructuring of this system in the last two years, it has only become worse. But all this does not eliminate the questions about the creators of the rocket, who promised in the late 1990s to test it using an accelerated scheme, without launches from special stands.

Solomonov still assures that the missile will be manufactured within the specified timeframe. And since serial production of the Bulava is already being prepared, in three or four years the Dolgoruky may receive weapons. The development of the submarine itself without weapons will take several years, so a delay is inevitable.

There is another reason to criticize the new submarine. It was built using old stock – sections prepared in Soviet times for other types of submarines. It is unknown how much the price of the submarine, which is officially 23 billion rubles, will increase if it is made from newly made sections – two more ships of this type are currently being built in Severodvinsk, and they promise to build seven submarines by 2017.

And finally, some experts find the very idea of building new boats questionable when there are many relatively “fresh” old ones, the repair of which takes many years, and some of them have already been cut up, although the Americans have had such ships in service for 40 years.

But if we recall the state of Sevmash in the 90s, when people lined up for bread in the plant's canteens and wages were not paid for six months, the construction of the boat justified itself. The main problem of our machine building is no longer a lack of money: there are no people.

Without projects like Dolgoruky, the workers of Sevmash would probably have scattered – at least to work in Finland, as often happens in the Russian North. It is unlikely that they will be reassembled or replaced by migrant workers. So the military and industry are rightfully proud of the submarine.

"Dolgoruky" without a hand