Today, the yard where the Vikramaditya/Gorschkov is being refitted — the Severomash in Severodvinsk — claims that the cost of refitting the Gorschkov has escalated from $700 million agreed price to about $1.3 billion. But that is not the real story. Any flat buyer who has been cheated by a builder will be familiar with this one. After paying 50 per cent of the flat price, the owner goes to see his flat, sees nothing on the ground, and is told that unless he pays 75 per cent of costs and a 50 per cent escalation, the flat construction won’t even start. The Gorschkov story is one such episode. The great mystery, of course, is whether the managers of Severomash, normally an inoffensive, hard-working lot in a remote shipyard, are doing this scam entirely on their own, or it is encouraged and abetted from Moscow.

When the Gorschkov refit started, Severodvnsk was on the verge of collapse, with the threat of thousands of workers being laid off. Today, the yard is thriving, outwardly at least. The buildings have been renovated, the employees have new cars, there are spanking new computers and office systems, but practically no work going on, on our aircraft carrier. The yard however is very busy. The new-generation Russian Nuclear Submarine, the Boreii class, languishing under construction for eight long years, has suddenly been completed. Two more Boreii class are being built — all to join the Far East Fleet in Kamchatka, to help Russia flex its new-found muscle. The yard is also churning out miles of pipelines to take Siberian gas and oil to new buyers, at $100 a barrel. When the Gorschkov deal was signed, the oil price was $47 and Russia’s GDP was $300 billion. Now it stands at $1.5 trillion. What has not changed is the camaraderie between the Indian naval officers and their Russian colleagues in the yard. Truth they say always comes out with vodka. “You must be daft,” say the Russians, “if you thought you were getting a free aircraft carrier.”

... contd.