Built as a protected cruiser under yard No 247 by Stettiner Vulcan at Stettin-Bredow, Germany for the Imperial Russian Navy.
09 December1898 laid down.
17 January 1901 launched under the name BOGATYR on of the Bogatyr class of which four were built.
Displacement 6.645 ton, dim. 439.8 x 54.5 x 20.7ft. (draught).
Powered by vertical triple expansion steam engines, 23.000 ihp, twin shafts, speed 23 knots.
Bunker capacity 1100 ton coal maximum.
Armament: 12 – 6 inch, 12 – 11pdr., 8 – 3pdr., 2 – 1pdr. guns, 2 – 15 inch torpedo tubes.
Crew 593.
1902 Completed.
After commissioned a unit of the Baltic Fleet.
When in 1904 the Russo-Japanese War broke out she was in the Far East.
15 May 1904 running aground during fog on rocks off Vladivostok and badly damaged, due to this she took not part in the Battle of Ulsan.
She was later salvaged and repaired.
1908 With the Russian Training Squadron in the Mediterranean, took part in the rescue mission of the squadron when the Italian town Messina was struck by a heavy earthquake on 28 December 1908.
She was ordered to stay behind in Augusta to relay the radio communication between Calabria and Sicily.
When World War I broke out she was again in the Baltic Fleet.
Her main armament changed by 12 – 5.1 inch guns and 4 – 11pdr. AA guns were added.
She could also carry 100 mines.
26 August 1914 when the German light cruiser MAGDEBURG and a number of destroyers and torpedo boats operated in the entrance of the Gulf of Finland minelaying and carrying out sorties in the Northern Baltic, she encountered a small Russian squadron under which the BOGATYR.
In the engagement that followed the MAGDEBURG grounded off the island of Odensholm and became an easy target for the Russians. She was captured before the German had time to destroy the German naval codes, complete with the current key, which the Russians passed on to the British Navy.
1922 Sold for scrap to Germany and scrapped at Bremen.
Source: Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1860-1905 and some web-sites.