Azov was a 74-gun ship of the line of the Imperial Russian Navy. Azov was built in 1826 to compensate the losses of the disastrous 1824 Saint Petersburg flood. In the same year Azov, commanded by Mikhail Lazarev, became the flagship of Admiral Login Geiden's First Mediterranean Squadron and sailed to the Aegean on a joint English-French-Russian peacekeeping mission. On October 20, 1827 Azov spearheaded the Russian squadron in the Battle of Navarino. She engaged numerous enemy ships and sustained heavy damage.