Charodeika-class monitor
Charodeika at anchor; her two turrets are painted white
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| Class overview | |
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| Builders: | Galernyi Island Shipyard, Saint Petersburg |
| Operators: |
 Imperial Russian Navy
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| Preceded by: | Smerch |
| Succeeded by: | Admiral Lazarev class |
| Cost: | 762,000 roubles |
| Built: | 1866–69 |
| In service: | 1869–1907 |
| Completed: | 2 |
| Lost: | 1 |
| Scrapped: | 1 |
| General characteristics (as completed) | |
| Type: | Monitor |
| Displacement: | 2,100 long tons (2,134 t) |
| Length: | 206 ft (62.8 m) (waterline) |
| Beam: | 42 ft (12.8 m) |
| Draft: | 12 ft 7 in (3.8 m) |
| Installed power: | |
| Propulsion: | 2 shafts, 2 Horizontal direct-action steam engines |
| Speed: | 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) |
| Complement: | 13 officers and 171 crewmen (1877) |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: |
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The Charodeika class was a pair of monitors built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the late 1860s. They were designed by the British shipbuilder Charles Mitchell and built in Saint Petersburg. Both ships were assigned to the Baltic Fleet and had fairly uneventful careers mostly assigned to training units. Rusalka struck a rock in 1869 and had to be run aground lest she sink. They were reclassified as coast-defense ironclads in 1892 and Rusalka sank during a storm in the Gulf of Finland the next year with the loss of all hands. Her sister ship Charodeika continued in service until 1907 and was eventually scrapped in 1911–12. Rusalka's wreck was discovered in 2003 by an expedition sponsored by the Estonian Maritime Museum.
By late 1863, the Russian Admiralty Board had begun planning for the second generation of ironclads to succeed those ships then under construction and issued a requirement on 12 November for a twin-screw low-freeboard ship that could sail throughout the Baltic Sea. It was to be armed with 15-inch (381 mm) smoothbore Dahlgren guns and protected by up to 6 in (152 mm) of armor. Before even deciding which designs to accept, the Admiralty decided to order eight ships of various types in March 1864. Charles Mitchell was allocated only one of the eight ships before he submitted four different designs for the competition in May–June. Two ships of his simplest design were awarded to a new builder, S. G. Kudriavtsev, who was provided facilities at the state-owned Galernyi Island Shipyard. In addition the Admiralty committed itself to furnishing the armament, armor, engines and boilers as well as a variety of smaller components for the two ships.
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