The Nizhny Novgorod (River) Port — a cargo port on the Strelka in Nizhny Novgorod (The City of Gorky). Founded on 7 March 1932.
Nature of the facility
The handling of mineral and construction cargo is the enterprise's primary activity. Each year the port, which operates three cargo districts, moves approximately one and a half million tonnes of freight; during the navigation season it extracts and transports more than two million tonnes of river sand from the riverbed, and transloads approximately 700,000 tonnes of enriched sand-and-gravel mix and crushed-stone materials. The Nizhny Novgorod Port holds nine in-channel sand deposits in the Volga River basin, stretching from Vasilsursk to Nizhny Novgorod, and at Dudenevo on the Oka. Exploiting these deposits makes it possible to minimize haulage distances to sites under construction.
The range of cargo handled by the port includes stone, metal, reinforced concrete products, salt, coal, slag, fertilizers, and other materials and raw goods.
Historical background
Establishment
By Order No. 94 of the People's Commissariat of Water Transport, the Nizhny Novgorod River Administration was reorganized into the "Administration of the Nizhny Novgorod River Port, with boundaries: upstream along the Volga — Puchezh (exclusive), downstream along the Volga — Isady (inclusive)," and from a collection of scattered, unimproved wharves situated on the natural banks of the The Oka River and the Volga in the areas of the Strelka, the Siberian Wharves, Molitovka, and the Nizhne-Volzhskaya Embankment, a single, independent production enterprise was formed.
From ancient times
The actual history of the river port in Nizhny Novgorod is, in fact, far longer and richer.
In the early nineteenth century, the site of the Siberian Wharves (where the Central Cargo District stands today) housed the warehouses of eleven private shipping companies. At that time the Volga had more than 200 major vessel owners in all, each of whom maintained his own wharves or leased a permanent mooring berth. The Siberian Wharves gained particular importance in 1817, following the transfer of the Makaryev Fair to Nizhny Novgorod. At that point, however, they presented a rather dismal sight: a multitude of wooden sheds that had to be dismantled every year lest the spring flood carry them away. The cargo turnover of the wharves amounted to a mere one million puds, and although the city already had electricity, they were lit by kerosene lanterns until 1899.
A true flourishing came to the Siberian Wharves at the dawn of the twentieth century. The growth of the Russian economy had a favorable effect on water transport as well. In 1905 the first stone warehouses appeared on the Strelka.
Feeding the barge haulers and the economics of Nizhny Novgorod's ports in the tsarist era
Although at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the cargo turnover of Nizhny Novgorod's waterways reached 73 million puds, ships were moored to pontoon landings and barges, and goods were simply unloaded straight onto the embankment — such was the unsophisticated technology of the time. Only in 1905 did warehouses begin to appear along the banks, owned by nearly 200 major merchant vessel owners representing 11 private steamship companies.
The profits of the river traders grew by leaps and bounds: for the Samolyot company they reached three million rubles in 1916, while for Kavkaz i Merkury they exceeded five million. In those days the work of river laborers differed little from that of the burlaki (barge haulers): peasants whose land allotments could not feed their families trudged to the Strelka over snow that had not yet thawed. The terms of the game — pay, conditions of hire, length of the working day — were set by the contractor, who did not forget to skim off the lion's share for himself. The entire technical arsenal consisted of a wheelbarrow that itself weighed two puds, or 32 kilograms. In Nizhny Novgorod, workers were paid between two and six rubles per 1,000 puds (16 tonnes) of cargo moved. Over a navigation season, earnings reached 50–80 rubles — a sum the family was meant to live on until the following spring. But such springs were few and far between: more than forty percent of workers could not endure even five navigation seasons. All the more so because the work gang ate poorly: for every four or five men gathered around the pot there were 600 grams of coarse bread and 400 grams of meat…
On 5 February 1918 the Decree on the Nationalization of the Merchant Fleet was published, which led to centralized management of the steamship companies and the creation of a unified administration of the Siberian Wharves, headed by its first director, former cargo clerk Stepan Mitrofanov.
With that, figuratively speaking, the period of the "difficult childhood" of the future Nizhny Novgorod Port came to an end.
Yet the "adolescence" that followed was no easier: the Civil War, devastation, the heroic labor of the first five-year plans… But these were hardships against the backdrop of which the future port grew and strengthened, becoming ever better equipped.
The cargo port in the Soviet era
With the Narkomvod order establishing the Nizhny Novgorod River Port, life on the Strelka changed abruptly. The once-freelance stevedores became an integral part of its workforce. Competing work brigades emerged, with the teams of Tikhova and Yartsev leading the way.
In 1932 the first steam floating cranes, floating transloaders, and portable conveyors of various designs were put to work at the Siberian Wharves.
Over the years of the first five-year plan, the length of the improved reinforced-concrete quay walls reached 440 metres. Cargo turnover more than doubled compared with 1928, reaching 4,220,000 tonnes. The Siberian Wharves were elevated to the status of an above-category port.
In early 1937 the Gorky Port (at the time known as the "Above-Category Wharf") was divided into three independent first-class wharves: "Gorky-Gorodskaya" handled the receipt and dispatch of cargo at the city's berths, the processing of passenger-cargo vessels and Oka barges, lighterage, and transloading at the Gorky roadstead. It comprised the river terminal, passenger pontoon landings, and 130 vessels of the local fleet; "Gorky-Sibirskaya" and "Gorky-Molitovka" carried out freight and commercial operations and the handling of cargo vessels and railway wagons. The work of the wharves was coordinated by a dispatcher's section.
That same year the construction of the quay wall was essentially completed; on it, four "Kirovets" portal cranes with a two-tonne lifting capacity were installed for the first time. Soon the wharves were once again merged into a single port with cargo sections.
The Stakhanovite movement was growing ever broader. Working at many times the planned targets were the stevedore brigades of Burenkov and Ilyunina ("Gorky-Sibirskaya"), Yartsev ("Gorky-Molitovka"), and the crew of crane No. 9 mechanic Nenashkin ("Gorky-Gorodskaya").
Soon the wharves were once again merged into a single port with cargo sections.
The successful navigation seasons of the first years of the third five-year plan were cut short on 22 June 1941 by an order that turned cargo vessels into warships — patrol boats, minesweepers, gunboats, and hospital ships.
This milestone can rightly be regarded as the beginning of the period of "maturity" of the Gorky Port. Life on the Strelka changed fundamentally.
In recognition of their selfless labor during the Great Patriotic War, the Gorky port workers were presented with the Banner of the USSR Defense Committee for permanent keeping.
The contribution of the people of Gorky to Victory did not go unnoticed. The law on the five-year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy for 1946–1950 paid particular attention to the Gorky port workers. It is enough to note that of the 22,600,000 rubles allocated for the restoration of Volga ports and wharves, more than two-thirds (15 million rubles) were designated for the Gorky Port.
Yet no matter how swiftly the port's technical capacity grew, it could not have led the workforce to success without skilled hands, an inquiring mind, and the enthusiasm of its workers. Success was determined by proud labor traditions, one of which was the continuity of generations. It was no coincidence that in March 1951 State Prizes were awarded to Gorky port workers: crane operator I. D. Sychev, stevedore foreman N. V. Burenkov, and former chief engineer of the port M. R. Nikulin.
Without exaggeration, the Gorky Port during that period could boldly be called a forge — both of its own personnel and of outstanding specialists in the river fleet. A few characteristic examples:
— starting out as ordinary workers, many port employees rose to leadership positions: crane operator N. Yermolayev became a senior district engineer, electrician Yu. Vasin became the port's chief power engineer, and shift supervisor M. Sizov became port director;
— port director A. Vladimirov became deputy head of the passenger transport management of the Ministry of River Fleet during the war years.
In 1954, containers began to be used in Gorky for handling general cargo.
From 1956 the port began operating in winter, processing railway freight. Icebreakers would bring in several barges which, once loaded, would later sail out through the high water to the remote areas of the tributary rivers.
In all the years that followed, right up to the early 1990s — steadily increasing cargo handling volumes and raising labor productivity — the Gorky Port firmly held its standing as one of the most powerful river ports in the country.
The difficulties of privatization
Today the quay wall of the Central Cargo District of the Nizhny Novgorod River Port looks unusually bare. Two or three transit motor vessels being handled are lost among the sparse fleet of the port's own vessels.
The crisis in which the Gorky River Port found itself in the early 1990s was the result not only of the catastrophic drop in cargo volumes that arose from the processes of perestroika — the collapse of the well-ordered system of river transport operations and the loss of working capital due to rampant inflation.
"The main thing," says Vladimir Novitsky, recently the port's general director and now chairman of the board of directors, "is the 'grimaces of privatization,' which programmed the enterprise for bankruptcy from the very start. For how was it in Soviet times? Funds for housing construction and social infrastructure were allocated to the steamship companies, while the ports served everywhere as the clients. Since Nizhny Novgorod is the capital of the Volga United River Steamship Company, the Gorky Port built a great deal of housing. When privatization came, the port was separated from the steamship company's structure, but everything it had ever built remained on its balance sheet. The result was that roughly three thousand people who were employed at the port at the time were required to maintain, in Nizhny Novgorod alone, 150,000 square metres of housing. On top of that, there were apartment buildings in Balakhna, Gorodets, Lyskovo, Chkalovsk, Vasilsursk, Volodarsk, and Bor. An enterprise simply could not bear such a burden."
Many enterprises that found themselves in a similar situation never managed to recover from the deep crisis. But what would the entire glorious history of the Nizhny Novgorod Port be worth if its present-day managers, resigning themselves to circumstances, had failed to find the right solution to the problem?
And a solution was found. Having gone through the bankruptcy procedure and the associated external administration, the port managed to transfer all of its housing stock to the municipal balance sheet in full. After that, a search began for alternatives to the main former cargo flows — sand, gravel, and crushed stone — demand for which had dropped sharply.
Taking advantage of the fact that the Nizhny Novgorod customs office had moved into a building adjacent to the port, the port workers lured a customs post away from the railway, put the warehouses in order, and obtained a license for customs storage of cargo.
An enormous volume of work appeared, and consequently substantial revenue. In addition, the Nizhny Novgorod Port became the only organization in the Volga Federal District through whose temporary storage warehouses passenger cars belonging to legal entities are cleared through customs. That too is a source of income. The acute shortage of space in the existing warehouses confirms the promise of this line of business. The port is therefore currently engaged in their reconstruction and is beginning construction of new container and customs terminals.
Furthermore, having won a competition under the TACIS programme, the Nizhny Novgorod team received computer equipment and software worth 200,000 ECU from the European community and is now organizing the terminal's operations in accordance with international requirements.
The customs terminal is not, however, the port's only source of income. Only six women and fifteen dockers are employed in that section. In total, 800 people now work at the port. The rest are engaged in transporting and processing cargo. For even crushed stone and gravel are once again in demand — and in no small quantity.
But… the port's own fleet is insufficient.
This, and much else accomplished over recent years, allows us today to say with confidence that the Nizhny Novgorod River Port has overcome its crisis and is in a stage of recovery.
— In 2001, the port managed to increase cargo transport and handling volumes by one and a half times compared to 2000, revenue grew by more than twice, while wages simultaneously tripled, — says port General Director Alexander Sutyagin. — This trend continues today, and the business plan for 2002 calls for a further 1.5-fold increase in service volumes relative to 2001 levels. Revenue should double, and port workers' wages will rise by 50 percent. Based on the results of five months, I can say: we were not wrong in our forecasts.
The most important achievement was turning around the mood of the staff. In 2001, about sixty percent didn't believe the port would survive. Today, I think, everyone has — thankfully — become a patriot of the port and believes in its bright future.
Reports from the Field
JSC "Nizhny Novgorod Port" Being Driven into Bankruptcy
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— General Director of JSC "Nizhny Novgorod Port" Zharkov Andrey Aleksandrovich. There is no work at the port, all the clients have been driven away, the commercial department has completely stopped functioning, everything is being leased out. Zharkov blames the rank-and-file port workers for the lack of work rather than the commercial department. The commercial department, on the contrary, is being rewarded with bonuses.
All the port's equipment and fleet are being sold off. The controlling shareholder of JSC "Nizhny Novgorod Port" is the St. Petersburg company "LEK", "Makromir". They acquired the port in order to bankrupt it and build the "Strelka-City" business center on its site. Nizhny Novgorod Port also had another port in the city of Kineshma, Ivanovo Region. At this point the bankruptcy proceedings at Kineshma Port are already underway, all equipment and the fleet have been sold to cover debts. At Nizhny Novgorod Port wages are being delayed, and on 13.07.10 they read us order No. 190/1 on changes to the pay structure. Wages used to consist of a base salary plus a performance supplement, but now, after this order, the supplement is cancelled and in its place there will be a bonus for meeting the plan — but there is no work, so there is no bonus, and the wage will be 7–8 thousand rubles a month minus 13% tax, and what's left??!!!!!! Not enough to feed a family!!!! All the workers have spent their entire lives here — some are already retired, others are of pre-retirement age and have nowhere to go — who would take them on? There are also younger port workers, but they scrape by with outside earnings!!!! — "The Board of Directors of JSC 'Nizhny Novgorod Port,' at its meeting on 25 August 2009, decided to appoint Igor Tushev as General Director of the company. This is stated in the company's announcement. In a prior resolution, the Board of Directors relieved General Director Alexander Zharkov of his duties." portnews.ru/news/47573/ Something doesn't add up... Zharkov has already been out as General Director for a year. — Zharkov is director there again now. — By decision of the Board of Directors, effective 1 December 2009, Zharkov A.A. was again appointed General Director, and Tushev was dismissed. Tushev spent a long time in court arguing that he had been unlawfully removed from the post of General Director. — Zharkov is losing his mind — first he sends a river dredger for sand extraction off to Ukraine on the sea, and now he's decided to set up a ship repair plant to fix Volgoneft tankers on a wrecked floating workshop!!! — Port workers, you could at least get the General Director's name right. His name is Alexander Alekseyevich. |
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Contacts
Mailing address
603950, Nizhny Novgorod, Strelka St., 21
Phone
+7(831) 2417926