Qualla: Russian frigate Alexander Nevsky

Russian frigate Alexander Nevsky: Introduction

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich dined out on the shipwreck for the rest of his life. He liked to say he had very nearly drowned, and he told the story often — the tsar's son, eighteen years old, clinging to a Russian frigate breaking up on a Danish sandbar in the rain. Five men on that ship really did drown. Their names were Odintsov, Shilov and Polyakov, and two others whose remains went home to Russia, and three of them are still in the churchyard at Harboøre, under a stone put up by the people who tried to save them. Alexander Nevsky went aground about three hundred feet off what is now the coast of Thyborøn on the night of 25 September 1868. She is still down there, in some sixty feet of water.

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Russian frigate Alexander Nevsky: Fifty-One Guns, Cast in Pittsburgh

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Alexander Nevsky was launched on 21 September 1861 at the Okhtinskaya shipyard in Saint Petersburg — a screw frigate of 5,100 tons, large for her class, mounting fifty-one smoothbore cannon. All fifty-one were sixty-pounders, split between long and medium classes. She was part of...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Russian frigate Alexander Nevsky: Homeward from a Wedding

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unidentified engraver, Public domain. Five years later she was coming home from Piraeus, where she had taken part in the celebrations for the marriage of King George of Greece to Grand Duchess Olga of Russia. Aboard was Alexei Alexandrovich, son of Tsar Alexander II, at sea as part of his naval education, and aboard ...

Image: Unidentified engraver | Public domain

Russian frigate Alexander Nevsky: A Gun Fired in the Dark

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit «ВЭС». (СПб; 1914 год)., Public domain. The distress signal was a gun. The fishermen of the Jutland coast heard it, and the sea by then had gone calm, and they came out. Working boat by boat against a wreck full of men, they took off the entire ship's company but five. Those five had launched a lifeboat to go for help ...

Image: «ВЭС». (СПб; 1914 год). | Public domain

Russian frigate Alexander Nevsky: Courts-Martial and Consequences

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hjart, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Russian navy convened a court-martial and convicted both the admiral and the captain of dereliction of duty. Then the tsar intervened and pardoned them, citing their long service to the fleet. Nobody was punished for the wreck of the Alexander Nevsky. The loss made news acros...

Image: Hjart | CC BY-SA 4.0

Russian frigate Alexander Nevsky: What the Coast Kept

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Leif Jørgensen, CC BY-SA 3.0. Three of the drowned sailors were buried in the churchyard at Harboøre. A small stone marks the officer Odintsov and the crewmen Shilov and Polyakov, and its inscription reads: "They risked their lives to save other people. In the name of our Lord peace over them." The other two ...

Image: Leif Jørgensen | CC BY-SA 3.0