From 1818 on, only officers of the Imperial Russian Navy were appointed to the position of Chief Manager of the Russian-American Company, based in Russian America (present-day Alaska) for colonization and fur-trade development. Young aristocrats began to be trained for leadership at a national naval school. The Imperial Navy drew its officers from the aristocracy of the Empire, who belonged to the state Russian Orthodox Church. It expanded in the second half of the 18th century and reached its peak strength by the early part of the 19th century, behind only the British and French fleets in terms of size. It developed from a smaller force that had existed prior to Tsar Peter the Great's founding of the modern Russian navy during the Second Azov campaign in 1696.

Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. The Imperial Russian Navy ( Russian: Российский императорский флот) operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917.

Russian ships world of warships