The ship's design formed the basis of the Russian-built Borodino -class battleships. She was based at Port Arthur , northeast China , after entering service and fought in the Russo-Japanese War of β Tsesarevich was torpedoed during the surprise attack on Port Arthur and was repaired to become the flagship of Rear Admiral Wilgelm Vitgeft in the Battle of the Yellow Sea and was interned in Qingdao after the battle.
After the war, the ship was transferred to the Baltic Fleet and helped to suppress the Sveaborg Rebellion in mid While on a Mediterranean cruise, her crew helped survivors of the Messina earthquake in Sicily.
Tsesarevich was not very active during the early part of World War I and her bored sailors joined the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet in early Now named Grazhdanin , the ship participated in the Battle of Moon Sound in , during which she was lightly damaged. The ship was seized by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution in late and decommissioned the following year. Grazhdanin was scrapped in β Tsar Nicholas II had desired a warm-water port on the Pacific since his accession to the throne in Japan had previously forced China to sign over the port and its surrounding territory as part of the treaty that concluded the First Sino-Japanese War of β, but the Triple Intervention of France, Russia, and Germany forced them to return the port in exchange for a sizeable increase in the indemnity paid by the Chinese.
Japan invested much of the indemnity money in expanding its fleet, while Russia began a major building programme "For the Needs of the Far East" to defend its newly acquired port. Russian shipyards were already at full capacity so the Naval Ministry decided to order ships from abroad. The Naval Technical Committee approved the design with a few changes to which the French readily agreed. A contract was signed on 20 July at a cost of Tsesarevich ' s most obvious design feature was her tumblehome hull.
This had several advantages because it allowed greater freeboard since the narrow upper decks reduced the structural weight of the vessel's hull, it increased the field of fire of guns mounted on the sides, and it reduced the ship's roll in heavy seas.
