Russian Hydrographic Service

The Russian Hydrographic Service, full current official name Department of Navigation and Oceanography of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (Russian: Управление навигации и океанографии Министерства обороны Российской Федерации),^[2] is Russia's hydrographic office, with responsibility to facilitate navigation, performing hydrographic surveys and publishing nautical charts.

Since the Russian state is of such a vast size and nature that it includes many different seas, long and indented coastlines and a great number of islands, as well as a complex system of waterways and lakes,

Russia is a member of the International Hydrographic Organization.

Competences and functions

Despite having undergone a number of name changes along its history, the main functions of the Hydrographic Service of the Russian Navy have been quite consistently the following:

• Providing specific services to the Navy, including other branches of the Russian Armed Forces, related to the Russian maritime and coastal areas, as well as navigable inland waters. These services are of a strategic order and encompass the following fields:
  • Navigation and hydrography.
  • Hydrometeorology
  • Surveys
• Navigation and hydrographic support of maritime activities within Russian waters and implementation of the international
  Safety of Life at Sea Convention regulations in the waters under Russian jurisdiction.^[3]

Background

At the time of Peter I hydrographic surveys were carried out following personal decrees of the emperor through the General admiral. Hydrographic tasks were always performed by Naval officers, who from 1724 onward began to work under instructions from the Admiralty Board.

By 1746 important matters concerning hydrography were entrusted to Fleet Captain Alexey Nagayev who compiled the first atlas of the Bering Sea, as well as of the Baltic Sea in 1752. Nagayev's charts were very detailed for its time and, despite a few shortcomings, his atlas of the Baltic Sea was republished in 1757, 1788, 1789 and 1795, serving Russian mariners for more than 50 years.

Foundation and first phase (1777–1885)

In 1777 the Admiralty Board founded the Russian Hydrographic Service, implementing a plan that marked the beginning of systematic drawing of nautical charts.^[4] In 1799 a committee for the dissemination of marine sciences and the improvement of the drawing of charts was created, and in 1807 the Russian Lighthouse Administration was established so that the lighthouse system in Russian shores, shoals and islands would follow an organized pattern and be provided with regular, state-controlled maintenance. The first director of this section was Leontiy Spafaryev.^[5]

In 1827 the special Office of the Hydrographer General was established. In the same year the Corps of Naval Navigators was founded, the chief of which was also a hydrographer. The first and only general of the newly-instituted body was hydrographer Admiral Gavril Andreevich Sarychev (in office 1827–31), after whose death the management of the office was transferred to the Chief of Naval Staff Prince A. S. Menshikov. The first and only director of the hydrographic depot was F. F. Schubert (in office 1827–37).^[6]

In 1837 the former institutions dealing with hydrography were abolished and all the management of the hydrographic section was transferred to the newly-instituted Russian Hydrographic Department, the directors of which were:

• A. G. Villamov (1837–54)
• Baron F. v. Wrangel (1854–55)
• M. v. Reinecke (1855–59)
• S. I. Zelenoy (1859–74)
• G. A. Vevel von Krieger (1874–81)
• T. F. Veselago (1881)
• P. N. Nazimov (1892–1898).

Publications

The Hydrographic Office engaged in the periodical publication of notes, devoted both to hydrographic information, as well as information on other sectors of naval affairs. The committee, established in 1799, published:

• In 1801 – "
  Notice to Mariners
  " (1 vol.)
• From 1807 to 1827 – "Notes of the State Admiralty Department" (13 pieces)
• From 1835 to 1837 – "Notes of the Hydrographic Depot" (5 parts)
• From 1842 to 1852 – "Notes of the Hydrographic Department."
• 1854–83 – Annual reports of the Director of the Hydrographic Department.

The Main Hydrographic Office (1885–1917)

In 1885 the Russian Hydrographic Department was overhauled and renamed as 'Main Hydrographic Office' —Главное гидрографическое управление (ГГУ)— of the Admiralty. Its chief was the former director in charge of the

1886 saw the establishment of the meteorological department. In 1891 the fields of drawing, engraving, lithography and printing were integrated into the maritime cartography section and from 1897 this section began successful experiments printing nautical charts using aluminum printing plates. In 1902 a new building with a photographic department, including a workshop introducing innovative photographic reproduction techniques, was built within the premises of the Main Hydrographic Office. By 1904 the new techniques had been mastered by the staff and high-quality material began to be printed.[8]

The duties of the Hydrographic Department at the time included:

• Planning and carrying out surveys.
• Preparation of
  sailing directions
  and other guidance materials for safe navigation, as well as making periodical corrections —when needed.
• Erection and proper maintenance of
  towers, day beacons, buoys
  , signals, and other warning devices to improve navigation safety.
• Supply of military tools such as maps,
  pilot manuals
  , signals manuals and other guides.
• Inspection and evaluation of ships' logbooks in order to gather relevant navigational, astronomical, magnetic, and other observations.

The jurisdiction of the Main Hydrographic Office included the management of:

• Pilotage instructions and navigational instruments workshops in St. Petersburg and Nikolaev
• The Russian Maritime Observatory in Kronstadt and Nikolaev.
• The weather stations on the shores of the Russian seas.
• The
  maritime semaphore telegraph
  in Kronstadt.
• The
  Ochakov
  .

The period between 1885 and 1917 was characterized by full-scale construction and modernization of lighthouse equipment, compass technology and improvements in the printing of nautical charts. The 1910–1915

• Konstantin Mikhailov (1898–1903)
• Yakov Gilterbrandt (1903–1907)
• Andrey Vilkitsky (1907–1913)
• M. Y. Zhdanko (1913–1917)

The Soviet period (1917–1992)

After the initial period of instability that followed the 1917 Russian Revolution against the Imperial Government, the Hydrographic Office slowly returned to its duties as the situation calmed down and the Soviet takeover was completed. The work and dedication of hydrographers such as Konstantin Neupokoev, ensured that the service returned to normality.^[10] Czarist names and symbols were quickly removed, the former hydrographic institution being renamed as the 'Main Hydrographic Office of the Russian Republic' —Главное гидрографическое управление Российской Республики.

Between 1918 and 1922 hydrometeorological service units named Ubek (Убек) were established for the management of navigation safety measures. The Ubek regulated the particular hydrographic zone —in Arkhangelsk for example it was 'Ubek-North'— as part of the unified local authority directly responsible to the central Soviet government.

In 1924 the Hydrographic Office was renamed the 'Central Hydrographic Department of the

In 1935 the Ubek were replaced by hydrographic offices subordinate to the commander of the fleets and flotillas. In 1937 the 'Hydrographic Office UVMS Red Army' was renamed the "Hydrographic Office of the Workers' and Peasants' Navy" —Гидрографическое управление Рабоче-крестьянского Военно-морского флота (РК ВМФ). The design of the flags and pennants used by the office also underwent changes.

In 1940 the Hydrographic Office was renamed 'Hydrographic Office of the Navy' —Гидрографическое управление ВМФ. The following year, owing to the dire situation of the

In 1972, owing to Cold War dictated priorities, the Hydrographic Office of the Navy was overhauled and transformed into the 'General Directorate of Navigation and Oceanography of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR' —Главное управление навигации и океанографии Министерства обороны СССР (ГУНиО МО). The 1970–1980 decade was marked by an increased international prominence of the 'General Directorate of Navigation and Oceanography of the Ministry of Defense'. Since then the Hydrographic Service of the USSR officially represented the interests of the Soviet Union —in the same manner that the organization that replaced it in later years would do for the Russian Federation— in the

The heads of the Hydrographic Service of the USSR[15] were:

• Eugene Byalokoz (1917–1919)
• Pavel Messer (1920–1922)
• Sergei Blinov (1922–1925), 1st term
• Mikhail Viktorov (1925–1926)
• Sergei Blinov (1926–1928), 2nd term
• Izrail Razgon (1928–1932)
• Vasily Vasilyev (1932–1937)
• Nikolai Gorbunov (1937–1939)
• Iakov Lagushkin (1939–1947)
• Mikhail Kulikov (1947–1948)
• Vladimir Tributs (1949–1952)
• Pavel Abankin (1952–1958)
• Valentin Chekurov (1958–1963)
• Anatoliy Rassokho (1963–1985)
• Arkady Mikhailovsky (1985–1988)
• Yuri Zheglov (1988–1994)

The Russian Federation (from 1992 onward)

In the wake of the

In 2006 the name of the Russian Hydrographic Service would be changed to 'Department of Navigation and Oceanography of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation' —Управление навигации и океанографии Министерства Обороны Российской Федерации (УНиО Минобороны России), its current official name. Russian military presence in Arctic waters resumed in the summer of 2013 when Hydrographic Service vessels belonging to the Northern Fleet sailed to Rudolf Island in Franz Josef Land. The area had been neglected by the armed forces for a long time in the years that followed the fall of the USSR.^{[citation needed]}

The heads of the Hydrographic Service of the Russian Federation in recent times have been:

• Yuri Zheglov (1988–1994)
• Anatoly Komaritsyn (1994–2006)
• Sergey Kozlov (2006–2010)
• Alexander Shemetov (2010–2013)
• Sergey Travin (2013–)

Vessels

The vessels operating for the Russian Hydrographic Service have been historically of two orders or categories. To the first category belong those vessels that were built specifically as survey ships, of which there are different classes, and to the second, other kind of vessels of the Russian Navy that, although not especially built for the purpose, have eventually engaged in survey operations. The latter usually undertook surveys for specific periods of time during their naval service, such as the a four-masted tall ship Kruzenshtern, which performed hydrographic surveys between 1961 and 1965.^[16]

Types of vessels

Hydrographic vessels

Oceanographic vessels

• Project 97B, Vladimir Kavrayskiy (only ship built; no longer in service)
• 852 Project, 6 vessels built, including Admiral Vladimirskiy
• 22010 Project

Survey vessels

Images of selected vessels

See also

• Admiralty Board (Russian Empire)
• Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition
• Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute
• List of lighthouses in Russia
• List of Russian admirals
• Russian lightvessels
• Northern Sea Route
• Spy ship
• Stone of Tmutarakan, allegedly one of the first hydrographic documents in Russia.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Russian Hydrographic Service.

• The Siberian Sea Road: The Work of the Russian Hydrographical Expedition to the Arctic 1910–1915
• Hydrographic Society Russia – Hydro International
• Department of Navigation and Oceanography. Of the Russian Federation. Ministry of Defence Archived 2015-06-06 at the Wayback Machine
• Military History of the Cold War – Spy Ships
• Hydrographic vessel "Senezh" completed the Arctic expedition (ru)