Chernomorsky Plant

Chernomorsky Sudostroitelni Zavod 
(Black Sea Shipbuilding Yard) 
Chernomorsky State Machine-building Works  
Nikolayev [South]
Nosenko Shipyard
Sudostroitelniy Zavod 'I.I.Nosenko'
Andre Marti (South) Yard 
Shipyard No. 198

Mykolaiv, Ukraine 
Tel: +380 512 39-42-20 
Fax: +380 512 36-32-56

The Chernomorsky Shipbuilding Yard, founded in 1897, is one of the largest shipyards in Europe. The yard built a variety of vessels in its history, including cruisers, destroyers, submarines, ice breakers, tankers, cargoships, trawlers, research vessels and aircraft carriers. It built more than a thousand of different vessels and ships and installed with thousands of machines, mechanisms, boilers, shipboard equipment units also manufactured there. The shipyard's glory and pride were battleships and cruisers, the first in the world submarine mine-layer "Crab", which increased the strength of the Black Sea Fleet during the World War II.

The Chernomorsky [ie, Black Sea] shipyard was previously known as the Nikolayev South, Marti South and Nikolaeyev Marti shipyard. This shipyard was also known as the I.I. Nosenko Shipyard or Nikolaeyev-Nosenko in the 1960s, named after People's commissar of shipbuilding I.I. Nosenko. Stalin routinely greeted Commissar of Shipbuilding I.I. Nosenko (who was never arrested), with a cheerful, "Haven't they arrested you yet?"

The yard was built from 1895 to 1899 as the Nikolaeyev Shipbuilding, Mechanical, and Iron Works, owned by Belgian interests. The Nikolaev Shipbuilding Company yard began building ships for the Russian Navy in 1901. The Nikolaev Shipbuilding & Engineering Company works merged with the Company for Mechanized Production of South Russia in 1907.

On and after January 1, 1899, the headquarters of the Russian Admiralty of the Black Sea was at Nicolaiev. As a naval station, Nicolaiev had the advantage over Sebastopol of being situated in a perfectly safe position. It had a splendid dockyard belonging to the Russian Government, where several ironclads, a part of the Black Sea fleet, were built. It had also a private shipbuilding yard, with buildings which cover an area of about 70 acres. The entire plant of this yard, when completed, permitted the simultaneous construction of two first-class battle ships, three first-class cruisers, and some half dozen torpedo boats or torpedo-boat destroyers. The yard has also a very fine pontoon dock which was capable of accommodating a vessel of 5,000 tons.

The appliances of the Russian admiralty dockyard at Nicolaiev, as of 1898, were sufficient only for the simultaneous construction of two battle ships and several torpedo boats or destroyers; but they are capable of extension. The great importance of the new channel for the river Bug proposed in 1898 is best understood by the statement that the existing channel was too shallow to permit the passage of the new battle ships or cruisers, when completed with their armor plate and equipment, and it has been found necessary to send such ships to Sebastopol for completion. The new channel, however, obviated this.

The Andre Marti Shipyard (No.198) was once the largest private Russian shipyard on the Black Sea. Before the Bolshevik Revolution it built many warships, including two of four Russian Black Sea dreadnoughts. In the 1930s the Soviets initiated the construction here of such warships as cruisers of the Voroshilov and Frunze classes, work that culminated in the laying down in 1938 of the battleship Sovetskaya Ukraina of theS ovetskii Soyuz class and in 1939 of the battle cruiser Sevastopol. Work on thetwo capital ships stopped in October 1940 and never resumed. The Nikolaev yard was to witness in 1949 Stalin's capital-ship "swan song," when it started under direct orders of Stalin in 1949 the only Soviet postwar battle cruiser, the Stalingrad. The ship is said to have been about 60 percent complete and ready for launching when Stalin suddenly died in March 1953 and all work on the last Soviet dreadnought ceased.

Scientific and technological standards of military and civil shipbuilding contributed to high international prestige of the Chernomorsky shipyard. Its production has been exported to Sweden, Bulgaria, Finland, Romania, Great Britain, Germany, Portugal, Kuwait, Norway, and India. The main types are tankers of up to 45,000 dwt, smaller multi-purpose ships of 5,000 dwt and refrigerated trawlers.

Famous vessels, such as "Moskva", "Leningrad", "Kiev", "Minsk", "Novorossiysk", "Tbilisi", "Baku" and the most powerful fighting ship for the Russian Navy, i.e. the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser "Admiral Kuznetsov", were made by Chernomorsky Shipbuilding Yard. Dynamic development of construction of these heavy aircraft-carrying ships required new technologies that were developed by the Chernomorsky shipbuilding yard.