About: Charodeika-class monitor

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.