Qualla: Russian Battleship Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya

Russian Battleship Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya: Introduction

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

She began her life bearing the name of an empress and ended it bearing the name of a revolution, and both names now rest together on the floor of Novorossiysk harbor. Launched as Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya - 'Empress Catherine the Great' - this dreadnought of the Imperial Russian Navy was one of the largest warships ever built for the Black Sea. Yet her most dramatic moment came not against an enemy but at the hands of her own countrymen, who fired four torpedoes into her hull in June 1918 rather than surrender her. Her story is the story of Russia itself in those years: imperial pride, world war, revolution, and a deliberate, defiant sinking.

Russian Battleship Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya: An Empress Built of Steel

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Black Sea Fleet needed dreadnoughts, and in 1911 Russia authorized three. The second was laid down that October at the Nikolayev shipyard as Ekaterina II. The Russians, however, had a reputation for building ships that came out overweight, so they brought in the British firm ...

Russian Battleship Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya: A War of Near Misses

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For all her firepower, the great ship's war was oddly bloodless. Her most famous encounter came in January 1916, when she caught the fast battlecruiser Yavûz Sultân Selîm - the former German Goeben - at long range off the Anatolian coast. She hurled 96 shells across some 22,000 y...

Russian Battleship Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya: From Empress to Free Russia

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Then history overtook her. When the February Revolution of 1917 swept away the monarchy, the ship named for an empress could no longer keep that name. In April 1917 she was rechristened Svobodnaya Rossiya - 'Free Russia' - a battleship rebranded for a new order. The change ran de...

Russian Battleship Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya: Four Torpedoes and Four Minutes

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The end came fast. As German troops advanced in the spring of 1918, the ship fled Sevastopol for Novorossiysk. But the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk demanded that the Soviets hand her over to Germany, and rather than surrender the pride of the fleet, the decision was made to destroy he...