Small gift for the 290th birthday

21 May 2021 marks the 290th anniversary of the founding of the Russian Pacific Fleet. And what could be better on this anniversary than a gift that you can give yourself? So some thought was put into it and without further ado, the latest ship in Project 12700 was allowed to sail into its new home port for the first time. In beautiful Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a city of around 180,000 inhabitants on the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia and an important base for the Pacific Fleet, a dignified ceremony was held to mark the occasion.
The Yakov Balayev is the fifth boat of the Alexandrite-class, but only the fourth, which was put into service in December 2020. Number two of the series was damaged in a fire at the shipyard. Built the BalayevIt will be built between 2017 and 2020 at the Sredne Nevsky shipyard in Saint Petersburg. With a length of 61 metres, the Yakov Balayev 620 tonnes. To reduce the magnetic signature, the Russian Navy is using a unique monolithic hull made of glass fibre reinforced plastic for these ships.
As is usual with minesweepers, the units only have light weapons for self-defence, in this case a 30-millimetre cannon and two 14.5-millimetre cannons. While German war veterans are currently less popular as namesakes for obvious reasons, Russia continues to honour the "Heroes of the Soviet Union" when naming its ships: Yakov Balayev was a soldier in the Pacific Fleet who was killed at the age of 21 during the Soviet-Japanese War in August 1945.

Text: mb; Photo: MoD Russia