Strategically, the Imperial Russian Navy faced two overarching issues: the use of ice-free ports and open access to the high seas.

Saint Petersburg and the other Baltic ports, as well as Vladivostok, could not operate in winter, hence the push for Russia to establish naval facilities on the Black Sea coast and (eventually) at Murmansk.

As a result, separate naval groupings developed in relative isolation in the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Russian Far East and the Arctic.

A boyar named Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin founded a shipyard at Tsarevich-Dmitriev fortress and began constructing vessels to sail in the Baltic Sea.

With the Tsar's approval, the boyar brought Dutch shipbuilding experts to the town of Dedinovo near the confluence of the Oka and Volga rivers.

During much of the 17th century, independent Russian merchants and Cossacks, using koch boats, sailed across the White Sea, exploring the rivers Lena, Kolyma and Indigirka, and founding settlements in the region of the upper Amur.

The most celebrated Russian explorer was Semyon Dezhnev who, in 1648, sailed along the entire northern expanse of present-day Russia by way of the Arctic Ocean.

In order to defend the conquered coastline and attack enemy's maritime communications in the Baltic Sea, the Russians created a sailing fleet from ships built in Russia and others imported from abroad.

[3] The Beluga caviar from the Danube was famous, and merchants from the Republic of Ragusa dominated the import-export business in Serbia with the Habsburg monarchy.

"[7] As a consequence, the 1825 Committee to Organise the Fleet was formed, which outlined an ambitious shipbuilding project which aimed to create the third largest navy in Europe.

In 1836, they constructed the first paddle steam frigate of the Russian Navy called Bogatyr (displacement – 1,340 t (1,320 long tons), power – 177 kW (237 hp), armament – 28 cannons).

Between 1803 and 1855, their ships undertook more than 40 circumnavigations and long-distant voyages, most of which were in support of their North Americans colonies in Russian America (Alaska) and Fort Ross in northern California, and their Pacific ports on the eastern seaboard of Siberia.

The Russian admiralty feared that the Russian navy could be blockaded by the British and French navies in the case of an outbreak of war, and thus dispatched the Atlantic and Pacific fleets to North America, including San Francisco and from 1863 New York—with sealed orders to attack British naval targets in case war broke out between Russia and Britain.

Russia's slow technical and economic development in the first half of the 19th century caused her to fall behind other European countries in the field of steamboat construction.

In March, the energetic[13] Vice Admiral Stepan Makarov (1849–1904) took command of the First Russian Pacific Squadron with the intention of making plans to break out of the Port Arthur blockade.

On 15 May, two Japanese battleships – Yashima and Hatsuse, were both lured into a recently laid Russian minefield off Port Arthur, both striking at least two mines.

[15] The Russian fleet attempted to break out from Port Arthur and proceed to Vladivostok, but they were intercepted and dispersed at the Battle of the Yellow Sea.

Attempts to relieve the city by land also failed, and after the Battle of Liaoyang in late August, the Russians retreated to Mukden (Shenyang).

By 25 June, the Imperial Russian Navy had secretly purchased its first naval submarine, known as Madam, from Isaac Rice's Electric Boat Company.

By 10 October, this first Russian submarine was officially commissioned into service and shipped to the eastern coast near Vladivostok Russia and was renamed Som ("Catfish").

In 1903, the German ship building firm Germaniawerft at Kiel completed Germany's first fully functioning engine powered submarine; Forelle.

Germaniawerft, under the supervision of Spanish naval architect Raymondo Lorenzo d'Euevilley-Montjustin, continued his work on the Karp-class submarines, improving and modifying one into Germany's first U-boat, U-1, which was commissioned into the Imperial German Navy on 14 December 1906.

[21] Due to the ongoing blockade of Port Arthur in 1904, the Imperial Russian Navy dispatched their remaining submarines to Vladivostok, and by the end of 1904 the last of seven subs had reached their new base there.

With patrols varying from 24 hours to a few days, the sub fleets first enemy contact occurred on 29 April 1905 when Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo boats fired upon Som, withdrawing after failing to score a hit.

Although both battleship fleets were on nearly equal footing in regards to the latest in battleship technology, with the British warship designs representing the Imperial Japanese Navy, and predominately the French designs being favored by the Russian fleets;[23] it was the combat experience that Togo had accrued in the 1904 naval battles of Port Arthur and the Yellow Sea, that gave him the edge over the un-tested Admiral Rozhestvensky during the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May.

[27] In the Baltic Sea, Germany and Russia were the main combatants, with a number of British submarines sailing through the Kattegat to assist the Russians, including E9 commanded by Max Horton.

After Admiral Kolchak took command (August 1916), the Russian fleet mined the exit from the Bosporus, preventing nearly all Ottoman ships from entering the Black Sea.

The greatest loss suffered by the Russian Black Sea fleet was the destruction of the modern dreadnought Imperatritsa Mariya, which blew up in port on 7 October 1916, just one year after it was commissioned.

[35] The conscription law of 14 January 1874 provided the basis for mandatory military service for men of the Russian Empire between the ages of 21 and 43[42] for a term of up to six years.

[44] Naval conscripts traditionally came from the peasantry, though by the end of the 19th century the navy preferred those from the urban working class because they had more mechanical skills.