"Hero of Capitalist Labor"
Since the time of the perestroika and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, state orders for new nuclear submarines have dramatically decreased. Nevertheless, Spassky continued to work on nuclear submarines, including the new fourth-generation ballistic missile Yuriy Dolgorukiy class (construction started in 1996), but he expanded his Bureau into new areas in order to provide a livelihood for his employees.
One such area was the design and construction of oil platforms (together with Halliburton) that are now used for oil drilling around Sakhalin island, in the Sea of Okhotsk, and off the coast of South Korea.
Another important project was Sea Launch, a unique spacecraft launch service that uses a specially modified floating oil drilling platform, positioned in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, for its launch platform. Spassky was the chief constructor of the marine part of the project. Sea Launch provides an economical way to send satellites into space, almost ten times cheaper than NASA.
Spassky also became a CEO of the Non-Nuclear Submarines consortium (which includes Rubin, Admiralty Shipyards, and other shipbuilding companies). The company provides non-nuclear military submarines for the Russian Navy (among them diesel-electric submarines of the Petersburg class) and for export to India, Poland and others, among them submarines of the Amur class and the Sadko class ("tourist submarine"). Two of the latter were built and are now operating on Cyprus.
Spasskiy also proposed such exotic projects as a cargo submarine for year-round operations in the Arctic Ocean, and a nuclear underwater gas transfer station for trans-ocean natural gas pipelines, as well as more humble projects such as modifications of city trams.
These projects provided a reasonably smooth transition for thousands of Rubin employees to the market economy as well as some help to the Saint Petersburg city and philanthropy. Spasskiy and his enterprises financed reconstruction of Nikolo-Bogoyavlensky Cathedral in Saint-Petersburg, Church of John the Baptist (Ioann Pretechi) in Old Ladoga, the monument to the 300th anniversary of the Russian Navy, the celebration of the centenary of the Russian Museum, and many other projects. For his philanthropy, the Russian Orthodox Church awarded Spasskiy the Order of Saint Prince Daniil of Moscow. Anatoly Sobchak referred to Spasskiy's success in the transformation to a market economy when he called him a "Hero of Capitalist Labor".
Spasskiy was also awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation (2006)
Read more about this topic: Igor Spassky
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