According to the 2000 Mexican census, 1,293 Russian citizens were resident in Mexico.^[2]

Russian explorers in New Spain and independent Mexico

16th and 17th centuries

• 1542–43: Juan Cabrillo visits San Diego, Farallon Islands, Cape Mendocino, Cape Blanco, Oregon.
• 1579–1639: Russian frontiersmen penetrate eastward to Siberia and the Pacific.
• 1602: S. Viscaino explores to the Columbia River region, naming the Farallon Islands, Point Reyes and the Rio Sebastian (present-day Russian River).

18th century

• 1728: Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov explore Bering Strait.
• 1741–42: Bering and Chirikov claim Russian America (Alaska) for Russia.
• 1769: Gaspar de Portola traveling overland discovers San Francisco Bay.
• 1775: Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra anchors in outer Bodega Bay, trades with the local Indians.
• 1784 — Russians Grigory Shelikov and his wife Natalia establish a base on Kodiak Island.
• 1799 — Russian American Company (with manager Aleksandr Baranov) establishes Novo Arkhangelsk (New Archangel, now Sitka, Alaska).

19th century

• 1806 — Count Nikolai Rezanov, Imperial Ambassador to Japan and director of the Russian American Company, visits the Presidio of San Francisco.
• 1806–1813: American ships bring Russians and Alaska Natives on 12 California fur hunts.
• 1808–1811 — Ivan Kuskov lands in Bodega Bay (Port Rumiantsev), builds structures and hunts in the region.
• 1812 — March 15, Ivan Kuskov with 25 Russians and 80 Native Alaskans arrives at Port Rumiantsev and proceeds north to establish Fortress Ross.
• 1812 — September 11, The Fortress is dedicated on the name-day of Emperor Alexander I
• 1815 — First Russian migrant to California, José Antonio Bolcoff, arrives.
• 1816 — Russian exploring expedition led by Captain Otto von Kotzebue visits California with naturalists Adelbert von Chamisso, Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz, and artist Louis Choris.
• 1817 — Chief Administrator Captain Leonty Gagemeister conducts treaty with local tribal chiefs for possession of property near Fortress Ross. First such treaty conducted with native peoples in California.
• 1818 — The Rumiantsev, first of four ships built at Fortress Ross. The Buldakov, Volga and Kiahtha follow, as well as several longboats.
• 1821 — Russian Imperial decree gives Native Alaskans and Creoles civil rights protected by law
• 1836 — Fr. Veniaminov (St. Innocent) visits Fort Ross, conducts services, and carries out census.
• 1841 — Rotchev sells Fort Ross and accompanying land to John Sutter.

Migration history

After the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1881, Mexico frequently came under consideration as a possible refuge for Russian Jews seeking to emigrate.^[3] In June 1891, Jacob Schiff, an American Jewish businessman with railroad interests in Mexico, wrote to Ernest Cassel to enquire about the possibility for settlement of Russian Jews there.^[4] However, Russian Jews would not begin to arrive in significant quantities until the 1920s.^[5]

Pryguny in Baja California

From 1905 to 1906, about 50 families of Spiritual Christian Pryguny (colloquially known as Molokans), who arrived in Los Angeles from Russia, sought a rural location, and relocated to 13,000 acres (53 km²) of land they had purchased in Guadalupe, Baja California in Mexico.^[6] Theirs would become the most successful Prygun colony cluster in North America. There, they build houses largely in the Russian style, but of adobe rather than wood, and grew a variety of cash crops including mostly wheat, alfalfa, grapes, and tomatoes.^[7] Their village was originally quite isolated, reflecting their desire to withdraw from society, but in 1958, road construction in the area resulted in an influx of Mexican and other settlers; some chose to flee encroaching urbanization, and returned to the United States. By the 1990s, only one family remained in the area.^[8]

Notable Russian-Mexicans

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