Imperial Stepan Makarov; proof

Stepan Makarov was the Russian admiral who went down with the battleship Petropavlovsk after it struck a Japanese mine in April 1904, just weeks into the Russo-Japanese War — a loss that effectively handed Japan naval dominance in the theater before the war had properly begun. The St. Petersburg Mint has issued numerous proof commemoratives in this nickel brass format honoring figures from Russian imperial and military history, typically for the domestic collector market rather than circulation.