The Evstafi class were a pair of pre-dreadnought battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy built before World War I for the Black Sea Fleet.

They forced the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben to disengage during the Battle of Cape Sarych shortly after Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in late 1914.

Later, Evstafi and Ioann Zlatoust were relegated to secondary roles after the first dreadnought entered service in late 1915, and were subsequently put into reserve in 1918 in Sevastopol.

[1] The Evstafi class were slightly larger than Potemkin, being 8 feet 3 inches (2.5 m) longer, 1 foot (0.3 m) wider, but displaced 45 long tons (46 t) less.

[2] The Evstafi class had two three-cylinder vertical triple expansion steam engines built by ONZiV in Nikolayev that had a total designed output of 10,600 indicated horsepower (7,900 kW).

[3] Twenty-two Belleville water-tube boilers provided steam to the engines at a pressure of 242 psi (1,669 kPa; 17 kgf/cm2), which drove two screw propellers.

They carried a maximum of 1,100 long tons (1,100 t) of coal at full load that provided a range of 2,100 nautical miles (3,900 km; 2,400 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

[4] The main armament consisted of two pairs of 12-inch 40-calibre Pattern 1895 guns mounted in hydraulically powered twin turrets fore and aft.

The armour protection of the waterline fore and aft of the main belt was increased to prevent the sort of damage that disabled several ships at the Battle of Tsushima.

[13] Evstafi, as the newest ship in the Black Sea Fleet, was the flagship of Vice Admiral Andrei Eberhardt for the first year or so of World War I.

The force consisted of the pre-dreadnoughts Evstafi, Ioann Zlatoust, Pantelimon, Rostislav, Tri Sviatitelia and three cruisers escorted by three destroyers and 11 torpedo boats.

They did this successfully on the morning of 17 November and then turned west to hunt for Turkish shipping along the Anatolian coast before setting course for Sevastopol later that afternoon.

The following day, while en route, the ships were intercepted by the German battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau in what came to be known as the Battle of Cape Sarych.

Goeben hit Evstafi four more times, although one shell failed to detonate, before Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon decided to turn away and break contact after fourteen minutes of combat.

[15] Several armour plates on Evstafi required replacement after the battle and they were taken from the old pre-dreadnought Dvenadsat Apostolov, allowing the repairs to be complete by 29 November.

[16] On 9 January 1915 Breslau and the Ottoman cruiser Hamidiye encountered the Russian fleet while returning from a bombardment mission in the eastern part of the Black Sea.

During a minor engagement Breslau hit Evstafi's forward turret, temporarily putting it out of action, after which the two cruisers escaped using their superior speed.

Both forces turned on parallel courses and opened fire at the range of 17,400 yards (15,900 m), and although neither side scored a hit, Goeben had multiple near-misses on Evstafi.

On 1 October the new dreadnought provided cover while Ioann Zlatoust and Pantelimon bombarded Zonguldak and Evstafi shelled the nearby town of Kozlu.

The British wrecked their engines between 22 and 24 April 1919 when they left the Crimea in order to prevent the advancing Bolsheviks from using them against the White Russians.