The Admiralty Plant on the Shirsha: A Road to Nowhere

The Admiralty plant on the river Shirsha, located 20 versts upstream of Arkhangelsk along the Northern Dvina, was the largest enterprise of the naval authority in the Russian North that filled the demands of the Arkhangelsk Admiralty, located in Solombala, in the foundry and metalwork productions as well as in timber. The number of the plant’s workmen used to be up to 250 people, with the total staff number of up to 370 officers and lower ranks. The main problem of the plant was the low capacity of its machines, as the main source of energy was the water from the local shallow rivers. In addition, there were no mechanical engineering facilities in Shirsha, which made it impossible to manufacture machinery for steam-powered vessels under construction. For propulsion systems to be installed, they had to travel around Scandinavia to the Kronstadt docks. The boilers, too, were often brought from St. Petersburg or from other factories. Another serious issue was the complicated logistics for delivering finished products directly to the Admiralty. To address this issue, the naval authority experts proposed to move the plant facilities directly to Solombala to drastically reduce transportation costs and use available and planned steam engines. During the preparation of the Arkhangelsk Admiralty for closing down it was originally planned to hand over the plant to a private owner but these projects were buried in 1862. The plant was closed down and the remaining assets were sold.