Immediately after sea trials, Sissoi Veliky sailed to the Mediterranean to enforce the naval blockade of Crete during the Greco-Turkish War.

In 1902 the ship returned to Kronstadt for repairs, but very little was achieved until the early losses of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 caused the formation of the Second Pacific Squadron to relieve the Russian forces blockaded in Port Arthur.

[1] The man in charge of shipbuilding, Admiral Ivan Shestakov, saw little value in building uniform ship classes and regularly changed design and construction targets to match foreign novelties of the day.

[6] In September 1890 the Naval Technical Committee (MTK) rolled out a proposal for a medium-size (8,500-long-ton (8,600 t), 331-foot (100.9 m) long) battleship armed with three single 12-inch guns mounted in barbettes.

[8] Admirals Stepan Makarov and Vladimir Verkhovsky advised against the use of weapons of two different sizes (as this caused problems with fire control and direction), and against using the obsolete 1877 guns.

[8] In March 1891 the MTK presented a revised proposal that increased displacement to 8,880 long tons (9,022 t) and the main armament to four 12-inch guns that was accepted by Admiral Chikachev.

She carried a maximum of 1,000 long tons (1,016 t) of coal at full load that gave her a range of 4,440 nautical miles (8,220 km; 5,110 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

[16] The secondary armament was replaced by a half-dozen 45-calibre quick-firing (QF) six-inch (152 mm) Canet guns that were mounted in casemates on the main deck.

December 21, 1891] she was officially named Sissoi Veliky to commemorate the victory in the Battle of Hogland which coincided with the day of St. Sisoes the Great of Egypt in the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar.

[10] The management of the construction was flawed from the start: the stem and sternposts, rudder frame, and propeller shaft brackets were not ordered in time, and the late discovery of this omission substantially delayed progress.

[Note 2] The industrial capacity of the Saint Petersburg area could not sustain even the modest rate of naval rearmament that the government was willing to finance.

[22] The commissioning of Sissoi Veliky was scheduled for September 1896, but an examination in August revealed that the steering gear, water pumps, ventilation system and one of the turrets were still missing or defective.

[23] Immediately after the trials Sissoi Veliky was ordered to join the Mediterranean Squadron which was engaged in the naval blockade of Crete in the wake of the 1896 Cretan riots and the Hamidian massacres.

In February 1897 Sissoi Veliky steamed to Crete to join the International Squadron, a multinational naval force which intervened in a Greek uprising against the Ottoman Empire′s rule there.

[25] In early March, she steamed with other ships of the squadron to Selino Kastelli on the southwest coast of Crete to put an international expedition ashore that rescued Ottoman troops and Cretan Turk civilians from Kandanos.

The panel eventually dropped the charges against the captain and recommended introduction of mechanical fail-safe interlocks to prevent firing until the breech was properly locked.

The Saint Petersburg admirals dismissed these concerns, arguing that the gap between armour plates was an inevitable feature of the design, and that the decks and other faults could be fixed by the crew "in their spare time".

Sissoi Veliky, assisted by a flotilla of tugs, barely passed the shallow entrance to the Suez Canal, but Victorious ran aground near Port Said and abandoned pursuit.

[34] The company reached the city without meeting any opposition and at first it seemed that the European troops in Beijing could easily defend the Embassy Row from the disorganized mob.

[35] Sissoi Veliky remained in the Far East for another year; in December 1901 an accumulation of mechanical troubles that could not be fixed in Far Eastern docks compelled the fleet commander to send her back to the Baltic.

[37] Despite the urgency, calls to speed up repairs of Sissoi Veliky and completion of the new ships were stonewalled by the Ministry of the Navy until the shocking loss of Petropavlovsk on April 13 [O.S.

[38] Manuil Ozerov, the captain of Sissoi Veliky, expressed concern about her stability, but on at least three occasions Birilev suppressed his reports, arguing that past experience is sufficient proof of the ship's seaworthiness.

October 2] the squadron departed Libau (having being delayed a day due to Sissoi Veliky losing her anchor), and sailed to Tangier.

[43] The newer battleships continued their way past the Cape of Good Hope and Rear Admiral Dmitry von Fölkersam's squadron of cruisers and transports were ordered to rendezvous with Black Sea Fleet ships in Souda Bay and then take the short route via the Suez Canal.

[45] The voyage from Madagascar to Camranh Bay took 28 days at an average speed of 7 knots (13 km/h; 8.1 mph), and again Sissoi Veliky's mechanical problems evidenced themselves, slowing down the squadron.

[49] In the following hour the ship was hit by one 12-inch, three 8-inch and three 6-inch shells, which disabled her forward turret hydraulics, set the casemates afire and simultaneously severed the firefighting water supply.

[50] She took her place in line behind Navarin at the moment when the Japanese battleships ceased fire and the Russians hoped to leave the battlefield without further casualties.

Sissoi Veliky beat off the first (19:45) and the second (22:30) attacks, but the third one, by the Fourth Destroyer Flotilla under command of Kantarō Suzuki, which had already sunk Navarin and Knyaz Suvorov,[54] scored a torpedo hit 45 minutes later that damaged her rudder and propellers.

[55] The ship could still be steered by using her engines at varying speeds, but the flooding intensified and by 03:15 the next morning the bow was submerged to the point where forward movement was no longer possible.

Ozerov realized that Sissoi Veliky could not make it to Vladivostok;[56] he ordered "all astern", reversed the engines and headed crabwise to Tsushima Island, hoping to beach his crippled ship with the intent of using her as a fixed gun emplacement.