In that year two wooden boats, the Shilka and the Argoon, were constructed on the Shilka river, preparatory to the grand expedition of General Mouravieff.
Their timber was cut in the forests of the Shilka, and their engines were constructed at Petrovsky-Zavod.

The Argoon was the first to descend, leaving Shilikinsk on the 27th of May, 1854, and bringing the Governor General and his staff.

It was accompanied by fifty barges and a great many rafts loaded with military forces to occupy the Amoor, and with provisions for the Pacific fleet.

The Shilka descended a few months later.

She was running in 1866, but the Argoon, the pioneer, existed less than a decade.