An armoured cruiser discovered by accident

The ships began as armoured corvettes, became semi-armoured frigates, and retained the layout of central-battery ironclads. Their eventual combination of strong machinery and substantial protection was not the result of a settled armoured-cruiser concept. One reading is that capable designers applied practical logic while working around Russian requirements and limitations. The class can therefore claim technical priority even though its designers appear to have reached the type almost by accident.