Aurora is a legendary cruiser of the 1st rank. On May 23, 1897, the ship was laid down in St. Petersburg at the “New Admiralty” shipyard, and in 1903 she joined the fleet of the Russian Navy. The cruiser had its baptism of fire on May 14-15, 1905 in the Battle of Tsushima during the Russian-Japanese War. After returning to the Baltic Sea, Aurora became a training ship. The cruiser actively proved herself in combat operations during the First World War and in the revolutionary events of 1917. Then, on October 25, 1917, a blank shot from the ship served as a signal to capture the Winter Palace. Through the entire period of the Leningrad Blockade of 1941-1944, Aurora’s crew defended the city, while having been subjected to systematic shelling and bombing. The frame of the ship was ruptured and the cruiser took the ground. After the repair work in 1948, Aurora was moored at the Petrogradskaya Embankment and until 1956 she was used as a training base of the Nakhimov Naval School. In 1956, the Ship Museum was opened here as a branch of the Central Naval Museum.

The cruiser Aurora is often mentioned in various works of art — songs, poems and movies. For instance, in 1945 they began to shoot a film about the legendary cruiser Varyag, which was “played” by Aurora. They even installed a fourth fake pipe on the ship for filming.

In September 2014, Aurora was sent to Kronstadt for repair work, and after it was completed, she was returned back to her place of eternal mooring at Petrogradskaya Embankment on July 16, 2016.