ABOUT FOXTROT b-39 (Code name "COBRA")

The Foxtrot class submarine b-39 (code name Cobra) was built at the Sudomekh Shipyards just outside Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. Construction was started in 1972, and she was commissioned into the Soviet Navy in 1974. Upon being commissioned the Cobra sailed out into the North Sea where she then turned south for a secret voyage down the coast and around the southern tip of Africa, into the Indian Ocean and through the Sea of Japan until she arrived at her assigned home port of Vladivostok, home of the powerful Soviet Pacific Fleet.

During her twenty year career, the Cobra regularly patrolled in the Arctic, Pacific and Indian Oceans ranging as far east as the Pacific coast of North America. Although intrusions into the USA and Canadian territorial waters were strictly forbidden by international treaty, rumors of such occurrences persist to this day. Indeed, both sides in the "Cold War" considered submarines as the perfect espionage tool.

The Foxtrot Class Attack Submarine was the largest and most successful class of non-nuclear submarines built by the Soviet/Russian Navy. In all, 79 Foxtrots were built between 1958-1984. When you tour the "Cobra" you will enter the deep underworld of the Russian submarine service. This 284-foot stealth fighting machine spent its 20 year life prowling the oceans on its secret "cold war" missions.