Russalka 1893
Marker: recorded wreck position (Steam era).
Key facts
| Name | Russalka | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1893 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | Steam era | derived from year |
| Ship type | monitor, coastal defense ship | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Storm or weather | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | Russian Empire | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | Imperial Russian Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Sea / ocean | Gulf of Finland | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Finland | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 30 km from land |
| Position | 59.8654, 24.8854 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
Rusalka (Russian: Русалка, Mermaid), was one of two Charodeika-class monitors built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1860s. She served for her entire career with the Baltic Fleet. Aside from hitting an uncharted rock not long after she was completed in 1869, she had an uneventful career. Rusalka sank in a storm in 1893 with the loss of all hands in the Gulf of Finland. In 1902, a memorial was built in Reval (Tallinn) to commemorate her loss. Her wreck was rediscovered in 2003, bow-down in the mud, which has prompted a new theory regarding her loss.
Diving & visiting
The wreck of Rusalka was claimed to have been found by divers of the Soviet EPRON salvage agency in 1932, but they made no attempt to salvage it. EPRON's location does not match that of the ship as discovered in 2003.
In spring 2003, a joint project was launched by the Estonian Maritime Museum and the commercial diving company Tuukritööde OÜ with the aim of finding Rusalka which had sunk 110 years earlier. On 22 July 2003 the wreck of Rusalka was located in the Gulf of Finland, 25 kilometers (16 mi) south of Helsinki, by the museum's research vessel Mare. Two days later, deep divers Kaido Peremees and Indrek Ostrat more precisely located and videoed the wreck.
Location
- Recorded position: 59.8654, 24.8854 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Gulf of Finland
- Nearest coast: Finland
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Russian monitor Rusalka (revision 1379396297), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Discovery”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- SMS M68 1917 · 15 km
- Bungsberg 1943 · 44 km
- U-679 1945 · 88 km
- SMS Schleswig-Holstein 1944 · 96 km
- U-676 1945 · 98 km
- U-745 1945 · 100 km
Browse more: Europe wrecks · wrecks off Finland · Gulf of Finland · Steam era