VLADIVOSTOK. July 11 (Interfax-AVN) - The Varyag cruiser, the flagship of the Russian Pacific Fleet, will celebrate 100 years of the Chemulpo Battle by visiting the port of Chemulpo, now Inchon, Republic of Korea, Admiral Viktor Fyodorov, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, told Interfax-Military News Agency Friday.
"So far it is just a preliminary decision. It was taken when determining how to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Varyag's heroic battle," he said.
The Varyag cruiser (Commander Captain Rudnev) and the Koreyets gunboat, after a long and furious battle with outnumbering enemy on January 27 Julian (February 9 Gregorian), 1904 (in the course of the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905), were destroyed by their crews in order not to surrender. The Varyag was sunk and the Koreyets was exploded.
The current commander of the flagship Captain Dmitry Polozov told Interfax-AVN that the ship has a museum with artifacts from the old Varyag, for example the St. Andrew's flag (the Russian official naval flag) saved by the crew as the ship was sunk.
He also said that the cruiser had visited Inchon and Shanghai, China, as the flagship in 1999. The ship used to be visited by the Russian president, prime minister, and patriarch.
The Varyag missile cruiser (until 1996 Chervona Ukraina), Project 1164, NATO designation Balkom-1/Slava, commissioned in 1989, displaces 11,000t, has a length of 186m, width of 21m, draft of 9m, crew of 416 (including 70 officers), full speed of 33kn, and operational range of 600nm.
It operates a cruise missile system (16 missiles with a range of 550km), a SAR missile system with a range of 55km at an altitude of 22.5km, a short-range SAR missile system with a range of 15km at an altitude of 3.5km, a twin 130-mm multipurpose gun, 6x30 cannon with a range of fire of 2.5km and a rate of fire of 6,000rpm, two five-tube torpedo launchers, two 12-barrel jet bomb launchers, and a KA-27 Helix helicopter.