A shipyard for construction of innovative electric vessels has opened in Moscow—Sergey Sobyanin
Denis Manturov, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin and Nikolai Patrushev, Assistant to the President and Chairman of the Maritime Board of the Russian Federation, opened the new shipyard. It is located in the Nagatinsky Zaton district opposite the Southern River Station.
The ceremony marked the start of production of the most modern line of electric vessels, Moskva 1.0, and during the event the keels of some of the new vessels were laid. These vessels, with a capacity of 56 passengers, are designed for regular river transportation.
“There are many different factories opening in Moscow, but no shipyards have opened here for at least fifty years. What has happened in the last few years? We have made great progress in developing public transportation, especially electric transport. This includes the metro, the Moscow Central Diameters, the Moscow Central Ring, and the electric buses, which are increasingly replacing conventional buses. But the Moskva River seemed to remain unaffected by this trend. So we decided to resume regular passenger transportation on the Moskva River and implemented this project by launching the first electric boats,” said Sergei Sobyanin.
As a result, there was a need for new electric vessels that could replace obsolete models, including the tourist boats. After the reconstruction and opening of the capital’s river stations, the need renewal of the fleet increased even more.
“We restored and renewed Moscow’s Northern and Southern river stations, which are well known throughout the country. The so-called round trip was launched: a boat journey from the Northern River Station, along the Golden Ring and back to the Southern River Station. And we see that there is a huge need for new vessels on that route as well, and of course, it would be good to use primarily electric ships. Therefore, they decided to build a shipyard to produce state-of-the-art electric vessels. And with the support of the Government of the Russian Federation and the President of Russia, this project has been realized. And today we start, we begin construction of the first vessel at the Moscow Shipyard,” said Sergei Sobyanin.
According to Denis Manturov, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, the new shipyard is the most modern of all Russian shipyards engaged in the construction of electric ships, and the largest and most modern in Europe.
“Mister Mayor, I would like to thank you for the timely decision which you made back in 2023 to design and build this shipyard. It’s not only a shipyard, it’s also a design office. And it can be used for designing and building ships of different classes. And its existence is thanks not only to orders from the city of Moscow, but also to state support from the Government, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the leasing programs that cover the costs of construction and delivery—the so-called utilitarian grants for ships, I think this initiative will gain popularity,” said Denis Manturov.
Nikolay Patrushev, Assistant to the President of Russia and Chairman of the Maritime Board of the Russian Federation, noted that the new shipyard is an exemplary high-tech enterprise with comfortable working conditions for personnel. In addition to construction and design operations, it will also serve as a facility for the repair of electrical vessels.
Nikolai Patrushev added that the naming of the vessels to be produced at the Moscow shipyard is very relevant. “These are mainly electric vessels, they are very promising. It’s not the first facility to produce electric vessels, but it’s a great example for others. And we have carved out a very large niche in the world for electric vessels. And we should certainly not give up ground here, whatever we do,” he said.
The development of the electric river fleet will make it possible to reduce the burden on other modes of transportation, and to further improve the ecology of the capital, and it will become another stimulus for the development of tourism.
“And, of course, it is important that citizens, our citizens, both Moscow residents and those who come on excursions, come here for work and so on, can see the city of Moscow in all its glory," Nikolai Patrushev said.
Moscow shipyard
“A few years ago we seriously started work on reviving water transport on the Moskva River, and then we also decided to recreate the city’s traditions of shipbuilding. This initiative was supported by President Vladimir Putin. It took just 22 months to go from the initial idea to the launch of production of electric vessels at the most modern shipyard in Russia, which is a record,” wrote Sergei Sobyanin in a post on his channel in the messenger MAX.
Source: Sergei Sobyanin’s channel in the messenger MAX
Construction of the Moscow shipyard for the production of modern electric vessels began in October 2023 and will be completed in November 2025.
The facility is located on the site of a former utilities zone in the Melny Mys region of the city. The production area occupies 23,000 square meters, enough for full-cycle shipbuilding. This includes metal cutting, welding and hull assembly, and the outfitting and launching of vessels.
In addition, the equipment and production facilities of the Moscow shipyard it to allow to carry out servicing and maintenance operations, as well as repairing the vessels built on the site.
The production cluster includes a site for fleet maintenance and berthing points with the necessary charging infrastructure. In the future, they will provide maintenance and repair services for over 100 electric vessels every year. In the past, due to the lack of appropriate infrastructure, the owners moved their vessels to other regions, and as a result they had to be withdrawn from the route.
Wherever possible, production is automated. More than 70 percent of the equipment used is Russian-made.
More than 500 new jobs have been created at the shipyard. In general, about 50,000 people employed in cities in various parts of Russia are involved in the production of the components and equipment used in the building of the electric vessels.
The company has its own design bureau, which serves as a center for the development and design of electric river vessels. This will allow all production processes to be concentrated on one site and enable the development of a sustainable base for the development of competencies in the field of river shipbuilding. Conditions have also been created for training ship crews and upgrading employees’ professional skills. Training will be conducted on a state-of-the-art simulator. Training of specialists directly at the high-tech shipyard will result in upgrading the skills of the shipmasters working on Moscow’s river transport system.
“The Moscow shipyard has become a model of environmentally friendly production, built to the strictest legal requirements and successfully integrated into the urban environment. On one side the shipyard territory and the embankment are in a residential district, and in this area they are fully landscaped and planted with greenery, creating a walking zone with a playground and comfortable leisure areas for the public,” wrote Sergei Sobyanin in his channel in the messenger MAX.
Source: Sergei Sobyanin’s channel in the messenger MAX
The enterprise is decorated with modern facades inspired by Russia’s shipbuilding traditions. The materials for these were made in Moscow factories using Russian technologies. Solar panels have been installed on the roof as an alternative power source.
State-of-the art purification and filtration systems eliminate the possibility of waste water entering the Moskva River. As part of the improvement, the banks were strengthened, dredging works were carried out, convenient access and approach routes were created and facilities for the mooring of vessels were developed.
The new shipyard has a rated capacity of up to 40 vessels per year. Electric vessels of various types can be constructed here, including the Moskva 1.0, Moskva 2.0, and Moskva 3.0, and the Moscow Golden Ring cruise ships, as well as unmanned boats for patrolling the waterways of the Moskva River.
In the coming years, Moscow plans to purchase about 40 modern electric vessels for regular river transportation within the capital.
Currently during the summer navigation period more than 130 pleasure boats operate on the Moskva River, and their average age is about 40 years. Therefore the launch of construction in the new shipyard of the Moskva 3.0 electric leisure vessels, which have a capacity from 150 to 250 passengers, will significantly boost the renewal of the leisure fleet.
In 2027, the shipyard plans to lay down a modern hybrid cruise ship, the Moscow Golden Ring, with a length of 110 meters. It will navigate the popular tourist river route of the same name. The renewal of the cruise fleet will give a new impetus to the development of domestic tourism, and increase the popularity of the Moscow Golden Ring water tourism route. Passenger traffic on the route will increase two to three times by 2035.
The creation of a shipbuilding cluster is of crucial importance for the capital and the whole country. No such facilities have been built in Russia in recent years.
The shipyard will ensure the implementation of the provisions of Moscow’s river transport development strategy.
It is expected that by 2030 seven regular electric public transport routes will operate on the Moskva River, served by 67 new vessels. There will also be 42 new electric vessels operating on 11 excursion and pleasure routes. The river fleet of the capital will include more than 100 electric vessels manufactured by the Moscow shipyard.
As a result, the total number of riverboat trips will rise to seven million per year by 2030, with passenger numbers on regular routes reaching four million.
Passenger traffic will cover the entire water area of the Moskva River within the city boundaries.
Revival of regular passenger river transportation services
Revival of regular passenger transportation on the Moskva River is a unique project not only in Russia, but also in international practice. The world’s first year-round, modern, all-electric water public transportation system operates on the routes.
Today there are three regular river transportation routes on the Moskva River: Kievsky Station—Fili Park (nine berths), ZIL—Pechatniki (nine berths) and Novospassky—ZIL (six berths) with a total length of about 30 kilometers.
The first regular route, opened in June 2023 by Vladimir Putin, connects Kievsky railway station with the Heart of the Capital dock in the residential complex of the same name on Shelepikhinskaya Embankment.
In June 2024, in accordance with a decision of Sergei Sobyanin, the route was almost doubled in extent, to 12 kilometers. Two additional berths were constructed on the route—Beregovoy (on the right bank of the Moskva River, almost directly opposite the Heart of the Capital berth) and Fili Park (the new terminus). In September 2024, another berth on the first route was opened—Krasnopresnensky Park (near the park of the same name and the Expocenter Central Exhibition Complex).
The second regular electric vessel route, ZIL—Pechatniki, with a length of nine kilometers, was opened in September 2023. A year later, in September 2024, three new berths were put into operation: Nagatinsky, Zaton Novinki and Kolomenskaya Embankment.
In June 2025, the third regular electric river transport route, Novospassky—ZIL was opened.
Thirty-one vessels were purchased to operate on the three routes. All of them were named after smaller rivers in Moscow. The vessels belong to the Ice 20 class, which means they can navigate areas of shallow ice—up to 20 centimeters thick. The modern electric vessels are operated by 102 experienced captains who have an average of more than seven years of experience on the water.
With the opening of electric river transportation, more than 1.8 million people living in 22 districts of Moscow now have alternative options for traveling around the city.
During the two years of their operation, over 2.9 million passengers have used the regular routes. The most popular departure points are the Kievsky piers, Fili Park, Pechatniki, Moskva-City—Central, ZIL and the Southern River Station. A total of 23 berths are in operation, including a new one at the Moscow Shipyard.
By the end of this year, it is expected that 1.6 million trips will have been made on the regular river transportation routes alone. Over 3.8 million trips have already been made on regular and recreational river transport routes during the 2025 navigation season, which is a record for passenger traffic on the river in the last 30 years.
In 2020, the large-scale restoration of the Northern River Station was completed. In 2023, the Southern River Station was reconstructed, and the embankment and the entire space in front of it were renovated.
As a result, during the summer navigation passengers can now depart from the Moscow river stations and, from the decks of comfortable cruise liners, enjoy the beauty of dozens of Russian cities and places of tourist interest, historical and modern sights.
In the 2025 season cruise ships docked at and departed from the Northern and Southern River Stations 2,200 times. In total, they carried 210,000 passengers.
The renovated river ports have joined the city’s quality public spaces. They host events including concerts, master classes, sports and dance training sessions and mind games competitions. In 2025, more than 400 events were held in the river stations, attended by more than two million Moscow residents and visitors to the capital, of all ages.