"Petropavlovsk" was built by the Baltic Works in Saint Petersburg. Her keel was laid down on 16 June 1909 and she was launched on 22 September 1911. She entered service on 5 January 1915, six months after the start of World War I, when she reached Helsinki and was assigned to the First Battleship Brigade of the Baltic Fleet. "Petropavlovsk" and her sister provided distant cover for minelaying operations on 10–11 November and 6 December 1915. She saw no action of any kind during 1916. Her crew joined the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet on 16 March 1917, after the idle sailors received word of the February Revolution in Saint Petersburg. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk required the Soviets to evacuate their naval base at Helsinki in March 1918 or have their ships interned by newly independent Finland even though the Gulf of Finland was still frozen over. "Petropavlovsk" and her sisters led the first group of ships on 12 March and reached Kronstadt five days later in what became known as the "Ice Voyage".