Actuality September, 2007

The local authorities of the city of Sarov in Nizhniy Novgorod region have accidentally declassified the newest construction project of the Russian submarine, having put on the authorities’ official site the meeting report with its captain.
The report on visit to the city of the captain of the 3rd class of submarine “Sarov” Sergey Kroshkin was put on the authorities’ official site of Sarov on September, 6th, 2007. The item said, that the submarine is still on the stocks of a Severodvinsk plant, but “the commander-in-chief of navy has given a task to complete the work till the end of the year”. Also it was reported, that the date of a solemn launching is not defined yet, but the crew of 52 officers and midshipmen is already formed, and the submariners who served under the command of Kroshkin for four years on the submarine “Lipetsk” are its basis.
Besides, in the item there was project number the submarine (20120) and its performance characteristics were given. As “the Kommersant” (Russian magazine) notes, the new submarine is very similar to diesel submarines of the project 877 “Paltus” (”Halibut”), but it has larger displacement (3950 tons instead of 3050).

On Monday the report on visit of the captain of “Sarov” disappeared from the site of local authorities, but it was copied by Sarov information portal “Our city” and other local mass-media. At the same time all officials who were referred to for the comments could not tell anything about the project 20120.
The representative of the press service of the Russian Federation Navy Alexander Smirnov said that he “knew nothing”. At the shipbuilding yard “Star” in Severodvinsk it was reported, that their plant does not build new submarines, and the representatives of Northern machine-building company simply refused to answer the questions connected with the new submarine. The key decision maker of underwater technology the central construction department “Rubin” also could neither confirm, nor deny its participation in project 20120.
There are two versions about the fact why the submarine “Sarov” can be surrounded by such secrecy. According to the first one, the pilot project 20120 is intended for trials of the nuclear reactor on a diesel submarine as a supplementary power generating system. Similar experiments in 1980s were made in the USSR, and it is possible, that the Russian scientists decided to restart the program of placing mini-reactors on diesel submarines.

According the second version the newest nuclear reactor is tested on the project 20120 which was mentioned for the first time in February, 2007 in the publication of “Nizhniy Novgorod commercial newspaper”, dealing with the anniversary of the leading design engineer of reactors for submarines of experimental design office of engineering industry named after I. Afrikantov.