Oleg Anikanov
Oleg Karpovich Anikanov was an officer of the Soviet and later Russian navies. Over his career he reached the rank of general-polkovnik, equivalent to colonel general, and served as head of the navy's Main Engineering Directorate, and as deputy commander-in-chief of the Navy for construction, engineering support and maintenance.
Entering the Soviet Armed Forces after graduating with a speciality in engineering and construction in 1956, Anikanov spent his career in the navy, working on construction projects in and around the navy's many bases. His early service was with the Northern Fleet, where he worked on the new facilities required by the early generations of nuclear submarines then entering service. For his successes in this field, which included the first dry dock complexes in the USSR for nuclear submarines, he was awarded the Order of Lenin. He was later chief engineer of the military component of the, deputy chief of Severovoenmorstroy, and had responsibility for construction with the Baltic and Northern Fleets. He reached his highest positions in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with responsibility for supervising the construction of naval bases in Cam Ranh in Vietnam, and Tartus, in Syria. He retired in 1993, but remained active in construction and engineering projects, as well as naval alumni associations, before his death in 2021.
Naval career
Anikanov was born into a working-class family on 19 July 1933 in Moscow, then part of the Soviet Socialist Federative Republic, in the Soviet Union. He attended the V. V. Kuibyshev Far Eastern Polytechnic Institute, enrolling in the naval faculty in 1951, and graduating with a degree in military and civil engineering in 1956. He entered the Soviet Armed Forces that year. Between 1956 and 1966 he advanced through the positions of foreman, head of a construction site, and then head of the construction department of the, part of the Northern Fleet. In this role he supervised the construction of the first dry dock complexes in the USSR for maintaining and repairing nuclear submarines. For this achievement he was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1965. He undertook the advanced officers' training courses, graduating in 1962.In 1966 Anikanov became chief engineer of the military component of the, and then in 1968 served as deputy chief and chief engineer of the Northern Fleet's construction organisation Severovoenmorstroy. He was heavily involved in the construction of the main naval base in Severomorsk, and the subsidiary naval bases of the nuclear submarine flotillas, as well as in the creation of facilities for the storage and maintenance of nuclear missiles. He was promoted to general-major on 23 February 1972, and in 1973 he became deputy commander of the Baltic Fleet for construction, and then in 1981 deputy commander of the Northern Fleet for construction. In addition to special naval facilities, his work included overseeing the construction of housing for naval and civilian personnel and their families in the remote northern settlements.
Promoted to general-lieutenant on 17 December 1981, between 1983 and 1989, and again from 1992 to 1993, Anikanov was head of the Main Engineering Directorate of the Navy. Between 1989 and 1992 he served as deputy commander-in-chief of the Navy for construction, engineering support and maintenance. He was promoted to the rank of general-polkovnik on 29 April 1991.
During these years, Anikanov supervised the construction and introduction into the navy of new basing systems for strategic nuclear submarine missile cruisers. He also supervised the construction of naval bases in Cam Ranh and Tartus, and was a member of the state commissions for the acceptance into service of the facilities. Twice a year, in June and December, he would visit Cam Ranh to inspect the progress of construction. He retired from active service in 1993.