"Sinop" was named after the Russian victory in the Battle of Sinop in 1853. She was built by the Russian Steam Navigation Company (RoPIT) at Sevastopol. She was laid down in late June 1883, launched on 1 June 1887, and completed in 1889. "Sinop" began her trials in the middle of 1889 and she had a boiler accident the following year that killed eight and severely burned 10 more. Her machinery was upgraded between 1899 and May 1904 with 20 new Belleville water-tube boilers, but the ship suffered a boiler explosion in 1903 that left seven sailors badly burned. Plans for a radical reconstruction were made to be done while she was docked for replacement boilers. It involved cutting her down by one deck and replacing her armament with two twin-gun turrets equipped with 12-inch 40-caliber guns and ten 6-inch 45-caliber guns between the turrets in an armored citadel that used Krupp armor. However, this proved to be too expensive and was cancelled.