The
Treaty of Paris that ended the
Crimean War of 1854–56 limited the Imperial Russian Navy to only six
corvettes in the
Black Sea, so the royal shipyard in
Sevastopol was leased to the
Russian Steam Navigation and Trading Company. This meant that any ironclads built for Black Sea service would have to be built in
Saint Petersburg, disassembled, and then shipped to a port there for reassembly. The long-dormant facility at
Nikolaev was chosen and the navy began ordering machinery and tools from Britain to re-equip the shipyard in 1870, when Russia
abrogated those clauses of the treaty. A temporary
slipway was built at the
New Admiralty Shipyard in January 1871 and construction of
Novgorod, named after the
city, began on 13 April. Using two shifts to speed construction, her hull was completed by 29 December, when the official keel-laying ceremony was held. Within two weeks it was disassembled, and the first shipment of parts arrived at Nikolaev on 2 April 1872. Reassembly began on a specially-prepared slipway shortly afterwards. As there was no rail line between Saint Petersburg and Nikolaev, the components had to be railed to
Odessa, where they were
transshipped onto
river barges and steamers. The boilers were too large and had to be shipped by
freighter from the
Baltic Sea to Odessa for transshipment. Construction was delayed by late deliveries of parts and the workforce's lack of experience; the ship was finally
launched on 2 June 1873, with Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich in attendance.
Novgorods guns were mounted three months later, and she entered service the following year, at a cost of 2,830,000
rubles. During the winter of 1873–1874, a small superstructure was built aft of the barbette and an enclosed
wheelhouse was built atop it. In addition, the shape of the forward superstructure was modified so that it overhung the bow, and prominent
bridge wings were added. A telescoping boom for a
spar torpedo was fitted at the same time. In 1875, the ship made a port visit to Taganrog, and hosted Sir Edward Reed during a cruise along the Crimean coast that October. During the Russo-Turkish War, she was assigned to the defense of Odessa, and her armament was reinforced by a pair of 4-pounder guns mounted on her aft superstructure to protect her against
torpedo boats. These guns fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of to a range of . During this time, the navy realized that the ship's outermost engines contributed little to her speed, and with steam capacity insufficient for all of her engines, the outer engines were removed in 1876–1877. This reduced
Novgorods total power to and her speed to about . The ship made a cruise to the Romanian town of
Sulina on the
Danube after the war, and she received armoured covers for her engine room skylight and the central barbette hatch to protect against plunging fire.
Novgorod was stationed in Sevastopol throughout the 1880s and made short cruises every summer. She received the refurbished boilers from
Vice Admiral Popov after that ship was reboilered in 1883. She was reclassified as a coast-defence ironclad on 13 February 1892, by which time her armament had been augmented by two
quick-firing Hotchkiss five-barreled revolving cannon. These guns had a range of and a rate of fire of 32 rounds per minute. By the following year her hull and machinery were in poor condition. The ship was turned over to the Port Authority of Nikolaev for disposal on 1 May 1903 and stricken from the navy list on 3 July, after which she was used as a
storeship.
Novgorod was offered for sale to Bulgaria in 1908, but the offer was not taken up. The ship was sold for scrap in December 1911. ==Myths and reality==