became a training ship. She became a school ship in 1906 and her armament was reduced accordingly. Gerzog Edinburgski was initially assigned to the Baltic Fleet, but made a lengthy Pacific cruise in 1881–84. She was refitted about 1890 in the same type as her sister's 1892 refit, although her engine and boilers were replaced in 1897. The ship became a training ship for petty officers and was formally reclassified as a school ship like her sister in 1906. The sisters were converted into minelayers in 1908–11 and renamed after lakes near Saint Petersburg, General-Admiral became Narova and Gerzog Edinburgski was renamed Onega. Their rigging was reduced to pole masts, their armament was reduced to four guns, and they could carry 600–800 mines. They both participated in numerous minelaying missions in the early years of World War I, but Onega was hulked in 1915 as Blokshiv No. 9 and became a mine storage ship in Helsinki. Narova, however, continued to lay mines throughout the war. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk required the Soviets to evacuate their base in March 1918 or have them interned by newly independent Finland, even though the Gulf of Finland was still frozen over. The sisters were not included in the initial group of evacuated ships and were only permitted to leave in May for Kronstadt after lengthy negotiations with the Germans. Narova's crew joined the Soviets and she was used to mine the approaches to Petrograd later that year against the British forces operating in the Gulf of Finland against the Soviets. She was renamed Dvadsatpyatavo Oktyabrya (25 October) in 1922 The ultimate fates of the sisters are not exactly known. Blokshiv No. 9 was apparently broken up in the 1920s while Dvadsatpyatavo Oktyabrya became a mine storage hulk in 1938 before being sunk as a breakwater in the Neva River around 1959. Notes Footnotes Bibliography Cruisers of the Imperial Russian Navy