“Kniaz Potiomkin Tavriceskij” – the Russian battleship

The Russian battleship “Potemkin” (Russian: «Князь Потёмкин Таврический») was a pre-dreadnought battleship, built for the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. She became famous, when the crew rebelled against the officers in June 1905 (during that year's revolution), which is now viewed as a first step towards the Russian Revolution of 1917. The mutiny later formed the basis of Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 silent film “Battleship Potemkin”. After the mutineers sought asylum in Constanca, Romania, and after the Russians recovered the ship, her name was changed to “Panteleimon”. She accidentally sank a Russian submarine in 1909 and was badly damaged, when she ran aground in 1911. During World War I, “Panteleimon” participated in the Battle of Cape Sarych in late 1914. She covered several bombardments of the Bosphorus fortifications in early 1915, including one where the ship was attacked by the Ottoman battlecruiser “Yavuz Sultan Selim” – “Panteleimon” and the other Russian pre-dreadnoughts present drove her off before she could inflict any serious damage. The ship was relegated to secondary roles after Russia's first dreadnought battleship entered service in late 1915. She was by then obsolete and was reduced to reserve in 1918 in Sevastopol. “Panteleimon” was captured, when the Germans took Sevastopol in May 1918 and was handed over to the Allies after the Armistice in November 1918. Her engines were destroyed by the British in 1919, when they withdrew from Sevastopol, to prevent the advancing Bolsheviks from using them against the White Russians. The ship was abandoned, when the Whites evacuated the Crimea in 1920 and was finally scrapped by the Soviets in 1923.

A moderately complex, well-designed and richly detailed battleship “Potiomkin” model for intermediate to advanced modelers. Details, where necessary, are double-sided printed. Screws, illuminator’s frames and some other details are printed with “metallic” bronze paint.