The Russian cruiser Minin () was an armored cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy during the 1860s and 1870s. She was renamed Ladoga in 1909 when converted to a minelayer. The ship was sunk in 1915 when she struck a mine laid by a German submarine in the Baltic Sea. Design and description Originally designed as a sister ship to the broadside ironclad , the navy was dissatisfied with that ship as it believed that foreign developments had made her obsolete. So the ship was redesigned as a low-freeboard twin-turret ship with full rigging, much like the ill-fated British ship . Already launched when Captain capsized in a storm in 1870, Minin was reconstructed as an armored cruiser with her armament on the broadside and improved machinery. The ship had an overall length of , a beam of and a draft of . She displaced at deep load. Her hull was sheathed with copper to reduced biofouling and her crew numbered approximately 545 officers and men. Minin had a vertical compound steam engine that drove a single propeller, using steam provided by a dozen cylindrical boilers. The engine produced which gave her a maximum speed around . The ship carried a maximum of of coal which gave her an economical range of at a speed of . She was ship-rigged with three masts. To reduce drag while under sail, the single funnel could be lowered. The ship had four , a dozen and four rifled breech-loading guns. She had a complete waterline belt of wrought iron that ranged in thickness from amidships to 6 inches at the ends of the ships. The belt had a total height of , of which was below the waterline. Minin had a steel deck thick at the top of the belt, but her armament was entirely unprotected. Construction and career Minin, named after Kuzma Minin, was laid down by Baltic Works in Saint Petersburg on 24 November 1864 as a turret ship armed with four gun in two turrets and four 6-inch guns. The ship was launched on 3 November 1869 and began a complete reconstruction the following year. Minin was finally completed in 1878. In 1885 Minin had a rather unusual docking in the Dutch East Indies. When she required a dry dock, she was not allowed to dock in Singapore, reportedly because her draft was too high. In April she then