Evstafi

Historical information

Evstafi was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. She was built before World War I and her completion was greatly delayed by changes made to reflect the lessons of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. She was the lead ship of her class.

She and her sister ship Ioann Zlatoust were the most modern ships in the Black Sea Fleet when World War I began and formed the core of the fleet for the first year of the war, before the dreadnoughts entered service.

They forced the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben to disengage during the Battle of Cape Sarych shortly after Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in late 1914. She covered several bombardments of the Bosphorus fortifications in early 1915, including one where she was attacked by Goeben, but Evstafi, together with the other Russian pre-dreadnoughts, managed to drive her off.

Evstafi was relegated to secondary roles after the first dreadnought entered service in late 1915 and reduced to reserve in 1918 in Sevastopol.