ARKHANGELSK, December 28. /TASS/. Russian Northern Fleet’s nuclear-powered submarine K-84 Yekaterinburg repaired at military shipyard Zvezdochka in northern Russian port city of Severodvinsk after a fire in 2011 set out to a permanent base in Gadzhiyevo in northern Murmansk Region on Sunday, press officer of the ship-building plant Yevgeny Gladyshev told TASS.

Severodvinsk shipbuilders have handed the warship to Russia’s Navy on December 19. Its service life is extended by 3.5 years.

Missile-carrying strategic submarine cruiser Yekaterinburg came to Zvezdochka shipyard in June 2012 for a repair to prolong its service life and an emergency repair of a hydroacoustic station and first compartment equipment damaged in the fire. The fire broke out at a dock of the 82nd ship-repairing plant in settlement Roslyakovo in Murmansk Region on December 29, 2011. Timber scaffolding mounted over the submarine caught fire which has spread on the surface insulation of the hull. Eleven were hurt in the fire.

Zvezdochka is specialised in moderate repair of Project 667BDRM second-generation nuclear submarines (code Dolphin, Delta-IV according to NATO classification), which Yekaterinburg belongs to. This warship was already upgraded and handed to the fleet in 2003. Its service life was extended by ten years.

In July 2012, Zvezdochka has handed over RPKSN K-407 Novomoskovsk, so finalising modernisation of all six submarines of this series, namely K-51 Verkhoturye (1999), K-84 Yekaterinburg (2003), K-114 Tula (2006), K-117 Bryansk (2008) and K-18 Karelia (2010).

Yekaterinburg was built at Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk in 1985. The nuclear submarine is 166 metres long, 12 metres wide, displaces around 12 thousand tonnes. The maximum submersion depth is 400 metres, underwater cruising speed - 24 knots (around 44 kilometres per hour) and the crew is 140 strong. The warship is armed with 16 ballistic missiles R-29RM Sineva or Liner, a Sineva modification with a larger number of warheads.