New Admiralty
Sudomekh Shipbuilding Works. Number 196
Leningrad Shipbuilding and Mechanical Engineering
New Admiralty Plant

By 1900 there were two Government dockyards in the city of St. Petersburg: the New Admiralty, and the Galerny Island, both under the supervision of the captain of the port, who was a vice-admiral. The first was employed both as a building and repairing yard, while the second was smaller and was exclusively a building yard. In 1908 the New Admiralty and the dockyard of the Galerny Island merged into a single enterprise - Admiralteisky Shipbuilding Plant.

The former New Admiralty was excluded from the plant with the view of liquidation, which did not happen; since the early 1930s the shipbuilding was revived there as well. A short time thereafter the enterprise focused on making submarines. The plant was named Sudomekh (since 1966 - New Admiralty Plant). Prior to the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, this yard was reconstructed and fitted but for building submarines. There were two enclosed slips 360 ft. long and 65 ft. wid«, 2 open slips 520 ft. long and 90 ft. wide, as well as a. certain number of wooden slips.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 the plant was partly evacuated, and the rest of equipment was used to produce ammunition, armor platforms, pillbox frames, and to repair ships. Small armor chasers and sea armored tankers (which provided for defence of communications and participated in landing operation), tenders and barges for the Road of Life were designed and built there. In post-war years light cruisers and submarines (which carried nuclear propulsion since the 1970s) were the main enterprise products. Civil shipbuilding, which had started in the pre-war period, developed intensively as well. Icebreakers built for various purposes (including the Lenin, the first atomic icebreaker), tankers, floating fish-packing factories and repair docks, survey vessels were built there. Consumer goods, such as furniture and sporting goods were produced there as well.

Leningrad's old Sudomekh Submarine Shipyard included a diesel submarine assembly shed. The assembly shed had seen little activity since the last Foxtrot-class diesel attack submarine had been launched there in the 1960s. In 1969 strollers walking along the Neva River saw a modern-looking, small submarine tied up at the fitting-out quay. The submarine received the NATO classification ALFA Class SSN. In mid-1974, one ALFA was launched from Sudomekh, and in early 1976 one was launched from Severodvinsk. The class was back in series production.

Admiralty Shipyard shared a common boundary Sudoraekh Shipyard. There was no evidence available to Western intelligence around 1970s that the two yards were associated administratively, but it the Western view was that it was possible that they shared materials and that they jointly fabricated some assemblies and components. Each shipyard over the years had a distinct type of end-product, but there had been examples of cooperation in past programs, including submarine production, at tho two shipyards. In mid-1969 the first of the new Alpha class of nuclear powered submarine was launched from Sudomekh shipyard. In this case, some form of cooperation between Admiralty and Sudomekh seemed a possibility to Western intelligence, because of Admiralty's long-time work in nuclear reactors and the previous history of cooperation by the two yards in submarine production.

In 1972 Admiralty absorbed the Leningrad Shipbuilding and Mechanical Engineering (Sudomekh) yard, located on the original site of the New Admiralty yard and a specialist in submarine construction since the 1930s. The resulting entity was named the Leningrad Admiralty Association or Leningrad Admiralty Union (LAU), which received its present-day name in 1992.