Severodvinsk Naval Base (Molotovsk)

Severodvinsk is a Russian Navy installation on the White Sea coast of Arkhangelsk Oblast, in the delta of the Northern Dvina at its Nikolsky mouth, about 35 km west of Arkhangelsk. The base supports the sea trials of nuclear-powered submarines delivered by the submarine construction and repair facilities located in the same area, and the town itself remains closed to foreign citizens, who require a special permit to enter.

The installation is tied to two yards. Sevmash (Northern Machine-building Enterprise) builds and repairs submarines and other naval vessels alongside civilian ships and offshore platforms, and is the largest shipbuilding yard in Russia for large hulls. Zvezdochka handles the repair and refit of submarines and of military and civil surface ships, and likewise builds oil platforms. Two further local plants feed the yards: Severny Reyd, which produces marine equipment, and Arktika, which produces automated equipment. The Nikolo-Korelsky monastery buildings stand inside the Sevmash yard perimeter, and access to them is controlled through the shipyard pass system. The Russian Navy's Central Missile Range at Nyonoksa lies some 30 km to the west.

The site was developed from 1936 as Sudostroy, a purpose-built settlement for a warship construction programme executed as Construction Site 203; the locality received town status in 1938 as Molotovsk and was renamed Severodvinsk in 1957. Submarine work has dominated since the Soviet period: the first Soviet nuclear submarine, Leninsky Komsomol, was completed here in 1957, and the Typhoon-class boats were built at Severodvinsk in the early 1980s. The yards survived the contraction of the 1990s and continue naval construction and repair as the town's principal activity.