Tashkent

Tashkent was the lead ship of her class of destroyer leaders, built in Italy for the Soviet Navy just before World War II. The problems of the previous Leningrad-class destroyer leaders demonstrated that Russian design experience had atrophied in the years since the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the Soviets contracted for design assistance from Fascist Italy in the mid-1930s. Delivered without any armament in 1939, Tashkent was given a temporary gunnery outfit when she entered service with the Black Sea Fleet later that year. She had her permanent armament installed shortly before the Axis powers invaded the Soviet Union in mid-1941.