PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, Far East, March 17 (RIA Novosti, Oxana Guseva) - Russia's Navy Thursday started centennial celebrations for its submarine fleet off the country's Far East region.

The celebrations will include concerts, conferences, and veterans parades, and will culminate March 19 with a parade and unveiling of a monument in the submarine fleet's hometown of Vilyuchinsk on remote Kamchatka Island, referred to for many years in NATO handbooks as the "hornet's nest".

Russia's submarine fleet officially dates its foundation to March 19, 1906, when Emperor Nicholas II signed a decree making submarines an independent class of military ship. The Kamchatka fleet was founded in 1938, and the Soviet Union launched its first nuclear subs off Kamchatka in 1963.