Imperial Royal Yachts

[Brian James]

Tsar Nicholas II pictured aboard his mother's Royal Yacht IRNY Polyarnaya Zvezda (Polar Star).
She was built at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg in 1888 under commission for the Tsar of all the Russias, Alexander Alexandrovitch Romanov III, as a gift for his wife, the Danish-born Tsarina Marie. Designed by the Navy’s Shipbuilding plans group, she was laid out by Admiral I. Shestakova who used inspirational plans of the fast British second-class Cruisers Iris and Mercury – who when they were completed were the fastest ship in the Royal Navy –as a base line for the Tsar’s fast new ship.
As she was to carry the Tsar, whose father had been assassinated just ten years before, the ship was heavily armed with a quartet of rather well hidden Hotchkiss 5-barreled Gatling-type 47 mm guns which were considered just the thing to smother an incoming anarchists controlled terrorist ship with hot lead, capable of spitting 30 rounds per minute out past 2000-meters. Called “Gockisa guns”, this armament, as well as an entire platoon of heavily armed Imperial Marines, quartered below deck, provided a formidable force.
Besides the Marines, the ships 313-man crew was extensively vetted and cleared by the Tsarist Secret Police, the dreaded Okhrana, and its members were 'salted' among them as seemingly innocent stewards and stokers just to keep everyone honest.

[designeraccd]

Some views from her appearance in 1909 at UK Naval Review.......pass daa beluga caviar ........DFO

[Brian James]

Protected Cruiser IRN Svetlana.
Built at Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée, Le Havre in 1896,she was the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Russian Navy and was used as a Royal Yacht in peacetime. She was sunk during Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War.