This ship was named after Zeus’s daughter, Athena Pallada—the goddess of war and victory. Its first captain was Pavel Nakhimov. The ship was created for great discoveries.
In 1852, “Pallada” left Kronstadt and sailed across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans to the shores of Japan. Admiral Putyatin was entrusted with a diplomatic mission; meanwhile, the Russian expedition throughout the entire voyage aboard “Pallada” studied the seas and oceans, carried out charting and surveyed bays and coasts. The secretary of this expedition was Ivan Goncharov, who described their journey in a cycle of essays titled “Frigate ‘Pallada’.”