Russian ironclad Petr Veliky
Petr Velikiy was an ironclad turret ship built for the Imperial Russian Navy during the 1870s. Her engines and boilers were defective, but were not replaced until 1881. The ship made a cruise to the Mediterranean after they were installed, and before returning to the Baltic Fleet, where she remained for the rest of her career. She did not, like the rest of the Baltic Fleet, participate in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. Petr Veliky was deemed obsolete by the late 1890s, but she was not ordered to be converted into a gunnery training ship until 1903.
An 1893 lithograph of Petr Veliky
Russian ironclad Petr Veliky, stamp of USSR 1972.
Petr Velikiy after reconstruction as a gunnery training ship
The Imperial Russian Navy operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from a smaller force that had existed prior to Tsar Peter the Great's founding of the modern Russian navy during the Second Azov campaign in 1696. It expanded in the second half of the 18th century and reached its peak strength by the early part of the 19th century, behind only the British and French fleets in terms of size.
Emblem of the Imperial Russian Navy
Goto Predestinatsia, flagship of the Azov flotilla until 1711
Russian fleet under the command of Admiral Fyodor Ushakov, sailing through the Bosphorus. By M. M. Ivanov
The naval cathedral in Kronstadt was one of several cathedrals of the Imperial Russian Navy.