Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering

Rubin Design Bureau

Founded	(1900; 117 years ago (1900))
Headquarters	Saint Petersburg, Russia
Number of employees	2000 (1993)
Parent	United Shipbuilding Corporation
Website	ckb-rubin.ru

Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering (Russian: Центральное конструкторское бюро "Рубин", shortened to ЦКБ "Рубин") in Saint Petersburg is one of three main Russian centers of submarine design, and the other two are Malakhit Central Design Bureau and Lazurit Central Design Bureau ("Lazurit" is the Russian word for lazurite). Rubin is the largest among the three Soviet/Russian submarine designer centers, having designed more than two-thirds of all nuclear submarines in the Russian Navy. "Rubin" (Russian: Рубин) is the Russian word for ruby.

On January 4, 1901 the Marine Ministry of Russia assigned the task of designing a combat submarine for the Russian Navy to three officers: Lieutenant M.N. Beklemishev, Lieutenant I.S. Goryunov and Naval architect Senior Assistant I.G. Bubnov, an employee at the Ministry's Baltic Shipyard where the construction of the vessel was planned to take place. The men submitted their design to the Marine Ministry on May 3, 1901; it was approved the following July, and the Baltic Shipyard was then awarded the order for construction of Torpedo Boat No. 113 (later renamed combat submarine Dolphin). Bubnov was appointed Head of the Construction Commission for Submarines. It was this Construction Commission that after multiple transformations and name changes became the Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering.

Construction of the Dolphin was completed in 1903, and its success in subsequent tests was the impetus for the creation of newer, more advanced types of submarines. By 1918 seventy-three submarines of classes Kasatka, Minoga, Akula, Morzh, and Vepr had joined the Russian Navy, and four more of the new class Major-General Bubnov were still under construction. Thirty-two of these were built to the designs of I.G. Bubnov, who had become Major General of the Naval Architect Corps and Honoured Professor at the Nikolayev Marine Academy.