Igor Spassky

Nevertheless, Spassky continued to work on nuclear submarines, including the new fourth-generation ballistic missile Yuriy Dolgorukiy class (construction started in 1996), but he expanded his Bureau into new areas in order to provide a livelihood for his employees.

[citation needed] Spassky also became a CEO of the Non-Nuclear Submarines consortium (which includes Rubin, Admiralty Shipyards, and other shipbuilding companies).

These projects provided a reasonably smooth transition for thousands of Rubin employees to the market economy as well as some help to the Saint Petersburg city and philanthropy.

Anatoly Sobchak referred to Spassky's success in the transformation to a market economy when he called him a "Hero of Capitalist Labor".

[2] Spassky was the creator of the K-141 Kursk project, the last of the Oscar II class submarines built for the Russian navy.

Spassky was a consultant in the rescue effort and some perceived that he was responsible for the ineffective actions of the military in the first days after the explosion.

In the open letter to Novaya Gazeta, the vice-president of Rubin, Alexander Zavalishin, and the General Designer of Submarines with Cruise Missiles (like Kursk), employee of Rubin, Igor Baranov, responded to the charges/ They stated that no vessel could survive simultaneous explosions of torpedoes, like the Kursk, when each torpedo was designed to disable or destroy warships.

Rubin bureau's own plans included separating the destroyed compartment of the submarine, lifting the intact section, and transporting it to the ship repair facility in Roslyakovo near Severomorsk.

Within five months, the Russian government contracted Dutch firms to raise the Kursk in an extremely difficult, large-scale and emotionally strained operation coordinated by Igor Spassky.