She was surrendered to the USSR in 1946 as war reparation and renamed after the early 19th-century Baltic German explorer in Russian service, Adam Johann von Krusenstern (1770–1846).

From 1961 to 1965 she undertook many hydrographic and oceanographical surveys for the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean, and Mediterranean, and was used as a training vessel for naval cadets.

Sailors on some of the other ships wondered about her speed and suspected that the captain was occasionally turning on her engines to gain an advantage and called her the "Dieselshtern".

[3] On 23 June 2009 while she was en route to the Charleston, South Carolina Harborfest, her foremast was damaged in a storm off Bermuda when the sail backed and snapped the mast.

[citation needed] On 4 August 2014, Kruzenshtern sank the tug Diver Master at Esbjerg, Denmark when a line between the two vessels failed to release.