The curious Soviet mini-sub of South Alabama

While running around South Alabama, I came across the sleepy shrimping capital of Bayou La Batre along the Mississippi Sound. The basis for Winston Groom’s (who grew up in Mobile County and for years later lived along Mobile Bay) fictional Greenbow, Alabama in “Forest Gump,” the town self-bills as, “The Seafood Capital of Alabama.”

So, of course, it has a surplus Soviet mini-sub along Hwy 188 downtown.

Soviet Sever 2 Bis civil submersible on its carriage at Bayou La Batre, 2018 (Photo: Chris Eger)

Built in Leningrad between 1968 and 1972 for the Soviet Ministry of Fisheries to research fish concentrations, Project 1825 produced two “North” (Sever) type submersible, dubbed “Север-2” (Sever-2) and Sever-2 Bis.

Proof the above wasn’t a Mardi Gras parade float

Complete with manipulator arms, seven viewing ports (3x 140mm, 4x60mm) and the ability to dive to as deep as 2,000m, they…