Pallada-class cruiser
Pallada underway
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| Class overview | |
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| Builders: | New Admiralty Shipyard, St Petersburg, Russia |
| Operators: | |
| Preceded by: | Svetlana |
| Succeeded by: | Varyag |
| Built: | 1895–1903 |
| In commission: | 1902–1922 |
| Completed: | 3 |
| Lost: | 1 |
| Scrapped: | 1 |
| Preserved: | 1 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Type: | Protected cruiser |
| Displacement: | 6,657–6,897 long tons (6,764–7,008 t) |
| Length: | 416 ft 0 in (126.8 m) |
| Beam: | 55 ft 0 in (16.76 m) |
| Draft: | 21 ft 0 in (6.4 m) |
| Installed power: |
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| Propulsion: | 3 × shafts, 3 × triple-expansion steam engines |
| Speed: | 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph) |
| Complement: | 571–81 officers and crewmen |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: |
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The Pallada-class cruisers (often known in Russia as "Diana-type protected cruisers", Russian: Бронепалубные крейсера типа «Диана») were a group of three protected cruisers built for the Imperial Russian Navy (IRN) in the late 1890s. One ship of the class, Aurora, is still crewed by the Russian Navy, and maintained as a museum ship.
The Pallada cruisers were built in the New Admiralty Shipyard in Saint Petersburg to reinforce the Baltic Fleet. However, the cruisers were intended to operate on commerce raiding operations worldwide, especially in the Far East. Initially the Imperial Russian Navy looked at foreign designs, including the Royal Navy‘s Apollo class and then the Astraea class before deciding to proceed with a domestic design. Although the armor protection of the Pallada class was still light, it represented a significant improvement over preceding Russian cruiser designs.
Orders for Pallada and Diana were placed in December 1895 and for Aurora in June 1897. However, due to the very long construction period required for these vessels they were already obsolete upon entry into service. As part of this same construction program, the Russian Navy had received cruisers of similar size from abroad (Varyag, Askold, Bogatyr), which were delivered between January 1901 and August 1902, and which were superior to Pallada class in several aspects, including their maximum speed of 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph).
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