Not for any money

They are afraid to touch an emergency nuclear submarine even a quarter of a century later

The team of one of the coastal "numbered" shipyards of the Ministry of Defense - the 30th SRZ - refuses to take on the disposal of the K-431 nuclear submarine. It was the accident on this boat in August 1985 that led to an explosion, the death of 10 people and ...

The team of one of the coastal "numbered" shipyards of the Ministry of Defense - the 30th SRZ - refuses to take on the disposal of the K-431 nuclear submarine.

It was the accident on this boat in August 1985 that led to an explosion, the death of 10 people and a radiation leak in the seaside village of Danube (Chazhma Bay), where the 30th Shipyard is located. The nuclear accident that happened a year before Chernobyl was not advertised at first, but there is no escape from the rumor. The submarine still inspires fear today.

As a rule, the disposal of nuclear submarines is carried out at the Zvezda plant in the Far East, located not far from the Danube - in the closed city of Bolshoi Kamen. However, this time Zvezda decided to rent floating dock No. 41 from the 30th plant of the Ministry of Defense in order to dispose of the nuclear submarine, which was still quietly rusting in Pavlovsky Bay. A number of employees of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "30th Shipyard of the Ministry of Defense" and residents of the Danube sent an appeal to the leadership of Zvezda, stating that the disposal of a submarine with nuclear fuel not unloaded from the reactor is dangerous. According to the specialists of the licensed plant, the radiation situation both inside and outside the compartment with the reactor is far from normal, and the consequences of disposal can be fatal both for the plant itself and for the Danube village located right there in Chazhma Bay. The Danube ship repairers believe that it is more expedient and safer to dispose of the nuclear submarine on the Zvezda itself, as was usually done. By the way, this also corresponds to the parameters of the contract concluded between Rosatom and Zvezda. Both the conditions and the accumulated experience - everything, it would seem, speaks in favor of this particular enterprise.

The official representative of Zvezda, Inna Mamushkina, told reporters her version. According to her, the rusted submarine K-431 will not withstand transportation to Zvezda, and delay in disposal can really end badly, in connection with which it was decided to cut the nuclear submarine at the nearest possible point from the place of its last sludge - that is in Chazhma. Mamushkina also notes that the 30th plant will receive more than 70 million rubles for the performance of the relevant work - not extra money, given that the enterprise has recently been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy due to a lack of orders, and the mentioned amount is about half of the plant's annual budget. On Zvezda they say that after cutting the submarine, the compartments in which the nuclear filling is located will be placed in a special sarcophagus and sent to the isolation point for emergency submarines of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise DalRAO, located nearby - in Razboynik Bay. That is, the unloading of nuclear fuel and other similar work in the Danube will not be carried out, and the most “dirty” work will still be taken over by Zvezda specialists. The placement of the nuclear submarine in the floating dock of the 30th plant was planned for July, the work is expected to take three months. Andrey Rassomahin, General Director of Zvezda, adds that even before the plant's specialists took measures to clean up the submarine's radioactive background, it was 10 times less than immediately after the accident, and today there is no danger either for the specialists of the 30th plant or for the Danube village.

In the meantime, distrustful Danubians are collecting signatures against docking the boat at the 30th plant and are preparing to hold the first protest action on July 12th.