Nikolai Ottovich von Essen was a Russian naval commander and admiral descended from the Baltic German noble Essen family. For more than two centuries, his ancestors had served in the Imperial Russian Navy, and seven had been awarded the Order of St. George, the highest military award of the Russian Empire. Essen was regarded as one of the most prominent admirals of the Russian naval force during World War I (1914–1918).

Sevastopol was the last of three ships in the Petropavlovsk class of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1890s.