Lot Essay
Basil Zakharoff (1849-1936), a renowned businessman of the early twentieth-century, assisted the Russian Navy in the modernisation of their fleet prior to World War I. The battleship Rurik, built in July 1909 and named after the founder of the Rurik dynasty, was the result of Zakharoff’s network of connections in engineering. Built by the British firm Vickers, a firm that Zakharoff managed from 1897 to 1927, the Rurik proved to be one of the flagships of the Baltic Fleet during World War I.