Yet another media scam.
The Russian government didn’t need to ship this much gold on a warship that was in danger of being sunk. They could have sent it to Vladivostok (the fleet’s destination) by rail, in perfect safety.
They could have sent the gold by railway...if there had been one. The Trans-Siberian Railway was not complete at this time. The section around Lake Baikal was an engineering headache.