The Central Naval Museum, Cruiser "Aurora"

The ship is a 1900 Russian protected cruiser, currently preserved as a museum ship. In the same time Aurora stands today as the oldest commissioned ship of the Russian Navy. The Cruiser  Aurora is a legendary 1st rank Cruiser. The Aurora's keel was laid down at the "New Admiralty" shipyard in St.Petersburg on 23 May 1897. The cruiser was launched on 11 May 1900 and joined the Navy of Russia in July1903.
During the Russian-Japanese War the cruiser, being included in the second Pacific Ocean squadron, sailed to the Far East (October 1904 - May 1905). The cruiser Aurora had her baptism of fire in the Tsushima battle on 14-15 May 1905. When she returned to the Baltic sea, the Aurora for a long time was used as a ship for training naval cadets of the Naval College. In 1917 the Aurora's crew took an active part in the February and October revolutionary activities and the Civil War repulsing international intervention. On 25 October 1917 a blank shot from her forecastle gun signaled the start of the assault on the Winter Palace, which was to be the beginning of the October Revolution. For the whole period of the Leningrad siege from 1941 to 1944 the Aurora was moored at a pier in the Oranienbaum port (the town of Lomonosov) and was constantly shelled and bombed. The hull was holed, got many leakages and sank aground, but the small crew courageously fought for the life of their ship. In July 1944 the ship was raised and taken into a dock for repair.
In 1948 the cruiser Aurora was moored at the Petrogradskaya embankment of Leningrad and till 1956 was used as a naval training ship by the Leningrad Nakhimov College. In 1956 the cruiser Aurora was made a museum (a branch of the Central Naval Museum).