Kirovsky Plant Unveils Amphibious Vehicles

By Sophia Kornienko

Staff Writer

Published: February 27, 2004 (Issue # 947)

Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times The Victoria hovercraft is propelled by a 100-horsepower aviation engine. Finnish clients have bought the craft for rural areas.

"We can extract oil and gas to our heart's content and stay really poor. It is machine building that truly forms a country's image," said Peter Semenenko, general director of Kirovsky Zavod - the plant known for its World War II tanks and, later, for Kirovets tractors - at the company's annual media day on Wednesday.

"Many enterprises have died," Semenenko said, referring to nearly 20 years of stagnation in the Russian machine-building industry, where many companies still live off their old developments and bring nothing new to the market.

As opposed to those "living dead" monuments to the Soviet economy, Kirovsky Zavod, which turned 200 two years ago, annually spends 10 percent of its investment funds on research and development and presents several innovative machines each year. The company reported total pre-tax profits of 452.4 million rubles in 2003 with each of its nearly 9,000 employees showing a work output of $27,000, as compared to the average $18,400 in the St. Petersburg machine building and metal processing sectors.

Semenenko, who personally holds an 8.04 percent stake in Kirovsky Zavod as reported by on-line business analytical journal Skrin, proudly unveiled the company's new money makers.

In March 2004, Kirovsky Zavod will launch a new production line to manufacture decorative ceramic tiles. The modern ceramics plant is full of the latest Italian equipment, with an annual capacity of 4 million square meters of tile worth $20 million. ZAO Keramin St. Petersburg, co-founded by Belorussian Keramin - the leading tile manufacturer in the CIS - is one of Kirovsky Zavod's 14 subsidiaries.

Targeted at the Russian market, Keramin St. Petersburg tiles will offer the same quality as the famous Italian-made product, but will be available at a cheaper price, since shipping and customs fees will be avoided. The production line is expected to pay off the $22 million investment within five years.

Kirovsky Zavod's other new source of stable income is the St. Petersburg-based transmission gearbox manufacturing line - a plant the size of four soccer fields that will soon be equipped with digital control systems and begin operation this year. The products will be targeted at railroad and highway construction firms and manufacturers of industrial vehicles such as forklifts.

But Kirovsky Zavod's main product is still the all-terrain track-type vehicle and its modifications. The Gazprom gas monopoly recently signed a $420,000 contract with the plant for 10 Ermak-500 swamp vehicles. Thanks to its innovative caterpillar construction, the vehicle has a surface pressure of only 0.3 kg per square centimeters even when loaded. By way of comparison, the average surface pressure of a grown man is 0.5 kg.

As Semenenko admitted, despite the fact that Gazprom is one of the most difficult clients to work with, the company plans to produce about ten Ermaks per year.

As if ceramic tiles and swampmobiles were not enough, the plant saved its most impressive new product for last. Onlookers at Wednesday's event were almost swept away by the passing amphibious air-cushion craft that is designed to hover close to, but above any surface. It was the first time this speedy four-seater had been demonstrated to the public.

The shiny ground-effect machine develops a speed of up to 100 kilometers per hour, propelled by a 100-horsepower Rotax-912ULS2 aviation engine. According to Semenenko, foreign customers, mainly from Scandinavian countries, are already lining up to purchase this hovercraft, which has been dubbed the Victoria.

The Victoria was designed for rural areas, for example, to travel across half-frozen bodies of water. Finnish clients are happy to purchase the vehicle at its retail price of 32,000 euros, Semenenko said. He also hopes to supply Victorias to the Russian Emergency Ministry, where he says the vehicles will be better than helicopters for saving fishermen carried away on ice floes. The hovercraft consumes only 16 to 20 liters of gasoline per 100 kilometers.

"The European small hovercraft market is occupied," said Dimity Tsimlyakov, deputy chief constructor at Almaz Central Naval Design Bureau, the Russian leader in large amphibious air-cushion vessel design. Plenty of models are regularly shown at Finnish specialized fairs, he said, but Russia can hardly afford to create a demand for such vehicles, which are quite expensive to maintain.

Tsimlyakov added that most hovercraft models are not suited for emergency conditions, since they lack what are called "amphibious qualities" when waves are high or broken trees must be overcome. The Rotax engines are considered to be weak and the fuel is depleted too quickly as compared to other engines, Tsimlyakov said.

Besides, according to a specialist at another research institute, the Russian mentality is traditionally against expensive emergency equipment that demands investment and advanced technological skills. "I have been told by oil industry workers that they prefer to get a cheap Kamaz truck, have it break down within one year and buy a new one the following year," the undisclosed source said.