Built of unseasoned oak, Tsesarevich saw little service, before she was stricken from the Navy Directory in 1874.

She was equipped with an imported British Maudslay, Sons and Field steam engine of 800 nominal horsepower that drove a single propeller shaft.

Tsesarevich was rated as a 135-gun ship of the line and she was equipped with a variety of smoothbore guns.

This was done to allow the ship to transfer to the Baltic Fleet since the Treaty of Paris demilitarized the Black Sea.

[1] En route to Kronstadt in 1858–59, her repairs to stop leaks were completed at Malta on 8 April 1859.