Russian frigate Alexander Nevsky
Alexander Nevsky in New York Harbor, 1863. Detail from an illustration in Harper's Weekly.
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| History | |
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 Russian Empire
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| Name: |
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| Namesake: | Alexander Nevsky |
| Builder: | Okhtinskaya shipyard, Saint Petersburg |
| Launched: | 21 September 1861 |
| Completed: | 14 June 1863 |
| Fate: | Wrecked, 25 September 1868 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | 51-gun screw frigate |
| Tons burthen: | 5,100 bm |
| Sail plan: | Full rigged ship |
| Armament: | 51 guns |
Alexander Nevsky (Russian: Александр Невский) was a large screw frigate of the Russian Imperial Navy. The ship was designed as part of a challenge being offered by the Russian Empire to the Royal Navy, but was lost in a shipwreck in 1868 while Grand Duke Alexei, son of Tsar Alexander II, was aboard.
Alexander Nevsky was a screw frigate of 5,100 tons (bm) and mounting 51 smoothbore cannon, making her a large vessel for her class. The ship's cannon were all 60-pounder smoothbores, divided into long- and medium-class guns.
The vessel was part of the expansion of the Russian Imperial Navy in cooperation with the United States, in order to challenge then-rival Great Britain's Royal Navy. The ship was designed by Ivan Dmitriev based on the frigate General Admiral, an American-made ship ordered by the Russian Imperial Navy prior to the American Civil War. It was named after Russian historical icon Alexander Nevsky (1230–1263), making it the seventh warship at the time that had carried his name.
Once commissioned, the vessel was part of the Atlantic Squadron of Rear Admiral Stepan Lesovsky. In 1863, Lesovsky sailed the Atlantic Squadron, using Alexander Nevsky as his flagship, to New York City in order to show the flag during a low point in American-Russian relations. The ship's captain at the time was Captain Mikhail Yakovlevich Federovsky.
The fleet's American design was noted with enthusiasm by American spectators. For instance, it was noted in Harper's Weekly that:
The two largest in the squadron, the frigate Alexander Nevski and Peresvet, are evidently vessels of modern build, and much about them leads the unpracticed eye to think they were built in this country ... The flagship's guns are of American make, being cast in Pittsburgh.
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