Cruiser Aurora

The cruiser Aurora is a ship of the Russian and Soviet navies and one of the most recognizable symbols of the October Revolution of 1917. The cruiser was laid down in 1897 at the New Admiralty shipyard in Saint Petersburg as one of three cruisers of the Diana class; it was named in honor of the sailing frigate Aurora, celebrated for its role in the defense of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky during the Crimean War, and the final name for the ship was chosen personally by Emperor Nicholas II from among eleven proposed variants. The ship took part in the Russo-Japanese War, sailing with the Second Pacific Squadron across three oceans and taking part in the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, and later saw action in the Baltic during the First World War.

The cruiser gained worldwide fame for the blank shot fired from its bow gun on the evening of 25 October (7 November) 1917, which served as the signal to storm the Winter Palace, where the Provisional Government was in session — an episode that turned the Aurora into one of the chief symbols of the Soviet era. In the following decades the cruiser served as a training ship of the Baltic Fleet, and during the Great Patriotic War its crew and guns took part in the defense of Leningrad; the ship itself was badly damaged by shelling and sank in shallow water at Oranienbaum.

The image of the cruiser became an enduring symbol of the Soviet era and of Saint Petersburg: its silhouette has appeared on postage stamps, commemorative coins and in films, and the Aurora remains one of the oldest surviving warships in the world.

Since 1948 the Aurora has stood at her permanent mooring off Petrogradskaya Embankment, at the source of the Bolshaya Nevka, where the ship was towed and restored after the war. On several occasions the cruiser has been sent for major overhaul — notably in the 1980s, when a substantial part of the underwater section of the hull was replaced, giving rise to debate about how much of the surviving vessel is original; the most recent large-scale overhaul was completed in 2016. Today the cruiser houses a museum, a branch of the Peter the Great Central Naval Museum, and the ship remains a cultural heritage site and one of the most recognizable landmarks on the banks of the Neva.