The story of Vereshchagin's death along with Admiral Makarov, the only competent Russian naval commander at the time, was a death knell for the Russian Navy. Coupled with humiliating and totally disproportional losses at the Battle of Tsushima ( Russians lost all of their 11 battleships, 4 of 8 cruisers and 6 of 9 destroyers against the Japanese loss of 3 torpedo boats) this left Port Artur totally undefended.
General Kuropatkin, the commander of the Russian Ground Forces was equally incompetent and lost one battle after another.
After Port Arthur surrender, he went into deep depression. To lift his spirits, Tsar Nicolas II presented him with a gorgeous chess set, made by Faberge of rare stones, gold and silver. It had carved signatures of Tsar himself, as well as those of Kuropatkin's fellow generals.
How do I know it?
A good acquaintance of mine is the #1 chess collector in the world, and he bought this set from a London dealer BEFORE it was put on the market. He just pulled out his check book, wrote the name of the dealer, signed it and only then asked " How much?" I never asked what was the number :-)
I spent some time in front of a custom glass cabinet, marveling at the incredible sight.
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