http://monstersinthesky.com/?page_id=15
1880
Spies from the Okhrana, the Russian Imperial Secret Police, obtained copies of Rynchowski’s notes and samples of both eteroid and the mechanisms by which it could be separated. The Tzar commissions Vladimiry Shukov, scientist & polymath, to investigate the material.
1883
Russian scientist , Fedor Oblimovsky, begins a crash program (ultimately fruitless) to develop an Electroid-based explosive shell.
1885
German Imperial agents bring news of Shukov’s work from Russia to Berlin. Ernst Walter von Siemens is put in charge of the evaluation, and (with better German precision technology) shows how higher voltages produce useful lift. Kaiser Frederick III, however, does not realize the potential in the wake of the crushing Prussian victory over France in 1870
1892
First Russian Leviathans, known colloquially as Berkuts (Falcons) raised.
1894
Sino-Japanese War begins. To protect its Far Eastern territories, centered on Vladivostock, Russia pressures France and England to join them in the Triple Intervention.
1895
Russians force Chinese to cede control of Port Arthur.
Japanese attack Russian territories in the Far East, starting Russo-Japanese War.
Seige of Vladivostok.
1896
Russian skyfleet under command of Mikhail Kozlov defeat Japanese naval fleet under command of Togo Haihachiro.
1897
Russo-Japanese War ends; Russia maintains and expands its territory in the Far East.
1901
Riots in Russia; Nihilists and students blamed.
1903
Peasant mobs slaughter Jews in Russian “pogrom”.
1905
Bloody Sunday: in St. Petersburg, Czar’s troops kill 500+.
Duma—Czar’s reforms fail—uprisings crushed by troops.
Grand Duke Sergei of Russia assassinated by anarchist bomb.
Leviathans
Over Togo's head the Zed flag was burning. The pride of the Japanese fleet, the battleship Mikasa, his Mikasa, was sinking. His aide tried to pull him toward the lifeboats, but Togo stopped and looked up. He saw the battered Russian leviathan claw its way into the blue sky. And at that moment Admiral Togo Heihachiro knew that Japan would not rule the east, after all. And one more thing. It was not the age of the gun.
It was the age of the sky.
Впрочем ладно, мало ли у нас иностранцев в генералитете было 