The Avrora was built in St Petersburg and launched in 1900 and saw active serviced during the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War. It is for the role it played during the Russian Revolution that the cruiser is better known today and why it has been preserved as a museum. On 25 October 1917 a blank shot was fired from the Avrora to signify the start of the assault on the Provisional Government in the Winter Palace and the beginning of the Bolsheviks' October Revolution. During the Second World War the ship was based in Oranienbaum and used for the defence of the city before being sunk in 1941. After the end of the conflict the ship was raised and restored and permanently anchored in St Petersburg. In 1956 it became a museum, although remained a commissioned ship of the Soviet and then Russian Navy. In September 2014 the ship was removed for restoration work and is due to be returned and reopened in 2016.