A particularly significant group of memorial objects consists of the dedication plaques of ships, each of which contains the ship’s name, the date of its dedication and other information. It’s interesting that both plaques on display in the museum were prepared for a cruiser named Rurik, albeit different ones.
One of them, made in 1890 by the firm of P. Ovchinnikov, was intended for the first ship in a planned series of armored ocean cruisers of increased displacement. It was dedicated on 19 May 1890, was launched in October 1892, joined the naval fleet in October 1895 and was sunk in battle with Japanese ships on 14 August 1904.
The second plaque was made in 1905 by the House of Fabergé workmaster Anders Nevalainen and was meant for the armored cruiser in the Imperial Russian Navy. Built in a British shipyard in 1905–1906, fully completed in June 1909 and sold for scrap after the October Revolution, it was the last and largest ship of its class in Russia and was the flagship of the Baltic Fleet during the First World War.