Mainly was poking around Wikipedia due to recent events, and ran across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_Fleet#Fleet_Commanders
There's no real citation besides for the latest of them, but there's this bizarre period where lower-ranked officers and then a warrant officer is listed as fleet commander... Any thoughts?
Just to clarify, there was no military ranks in Soviet army and Navy at that time (between 1925 and 1935). There were so called "military categories" (from K-0 to K-14), and army/navy appointments. So in reality Orlov had military category K-13 and naval appointment - Fleet Commander.
Warrant officer is his military rank in Imperial Navy in 1917.