Several proposals were made for Sinop's reconstruction with modern guns and better quality armor during the 1900s, but both were cancelled.

Sinop was refitted in 1916 with torpedo bulges to act as "mine-bumpers" for a proposed operation in the heavily mined Bosphorus.

Both the Bolsheviks and the Whites captured her during the Russian Civil War after her engines were destroyed by the British in 1919.

At full load she carried 900 long tons (910 t) of coal that provided her a range of 2,800 nautical miles (5,200 km; 3,200 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) and 1,367 nautical miles (2,532 km; 1,573 mi) at 14.5 knots (26.9 km/h; 16.7 mph).

[5] Sinop began her trials in the middle of 1889 and she had a boiler accident the following year that killed eight and severely burned 10 more.

[8] Sinop participated in the pursuit of the mutinous battleship Potemkin in June 1905 and towed her back to Sevastopol from Constanța, Romania.

This was also rejected as she still would have lacked the speed to stay with the main fleet and her armor was too obsolete to withstand modern high-explosive shell fire.

Her torpedo tubes were removed and Sinop also received a central fire control station.

[6] Sinop was refitted in Nikolaev with torpedo bulges to serve as 'mine-bumpers' in 1916 to allow her to lead other ships into the mined waters of the Bosphorus, but the operation was later cancelled.

Sinop therefore remained at Sevastopol for the duration of the Russian Civil War, being captured by both sides as they occupied the city in turn, but was then abandoned by Wrangel's fleet when it evacuated the Crimea in 1920.