Baltic Shipyard
As the Soviet Navy began to more regularly operate in large areas of the world's oceans and because of the emergence of the s, demand for large surface supply ships increased. In 1967, the TsKB "Baltsudoproyekt" (now Baltic Shipyard) received technical and tactical assignment for the design of Project 1559V sea oilers based on the civilian Project 1559 or "Velikiy Oktyabr" class. The main designers were S.N. Shumilov and Captain 2nd rank Yu. D. Makshanchikov.