Russian Australians
In 1807 the sloop Neva sailed to Port Jackson, under the command of Captain lieutenant Ludwig von Hagemeister, where it loaded provisions on its way to Russian America.
[3] Contacts continued in 1820 when the Russian ships Vostok (meaning 'East'), and the Mirny (Peaceful), under the command of captains Mikhail Lazarev and Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, visited Port Jackson.
In 1885 concerned British colonists thought a Russian invasion was again imminent and built Bare Island Fort to protect "Sydney's back door" in Botany Bay Up to 250,000 people a year emigrated from the Russian Empire to countries such as the United States, Canada, Argentina and Brazil towards the end of the 19th century.
The first major wave of Russian emigrants to Australia began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, largely Jews from the Baltic and south west of Russia escaping anti-Semitism and a wave of pogroms which raged in the wake of Tsar Alexander II's assassination on 1 March (old calendar) 1881.
Most emigrants had come via England at this time, but in the future many travelled via the newly opened Trans-Siberian railway and ports in the far east, which provided a quicker and cheaper route.
These migrants comprised political opponents of the Czarist regime and defectors from compulsory military service in the Russian armed forces.
The lure of Australia's democracy and social mobility outweighed the hardships which many of the emigres suffered in their first years, often in labouring jobs due to their lack of English.
These people faced persecution in Stalin's Soviet Union, being seen as collaborators or contaminated with dangerous Western influences.
There had been a large influx of Russian Orthodox refugees from China following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and more fled Mao Zedong's rise to power after the defeat of the Chinese Nationalist Army.
Several Russian born emigrants to Australia have published accounts of their escapes from Soviet Russia and Communist China, including Alex Saranin's 'Child of the Kulaks' and 'The Tarasov Saga' by Igor Ivashkoff (Gary Nash).
[citation needed] Alexander Kerensky, the leader of the Russian Provisional Government overthrown by the Bolsheviks in 1917, lived in Brisbane in 1945-6 with the family of his terminally ill wife.
Notable Russian emigrates include boxer Kostya Tszyu and pole vault champion Tatiana Grigorieva, who won a silver medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and noted Constitutional jurist Liubov Poshevelya.
Sydney's Bondi Beach is a popular area for Russian and Russian-Jewish migrants, with several restaurants and specialist shops catering to their needs.
The traditional centres such as Strathfield and Sydney's Bondi are ever-changing communities catering to new people and services such as language schools and churches have not been well distributed beyond these areas since the 1980s.
There is no language school, church or related services (for example) available in the northern suburbs of Sydney, despite Russians and other Slavic Europeans taking to the area in the recent waves of migration.
Renowned ballerina Irina Baronova toured Australia before the Second World War and lived in Byron Bay, New South Wales from 2000 until her death in 2008.
She moved to Perth with her husband composer James Penberthy and established the Western Australian State Ballet Company in 1952.
[11] Pianists Alexander Sverjensky and Phillip Shovk and painter Danila Vassilieff worked in Australia and boosted the local development of their arts, while art historian Nina Kristesen established the Department of Russian Language and Literature at Melbourne University in 1946.
The 150th anniversary of Alexander Pushkin's death was commemorated with poetry festivals in 1987 and a range of Russian cultural and social organisations are active in the major cities of Melbourne and Sydney.
