The first Russians came to Chile in the early 19th century as part of naval expeditions circumnavigating the globe, among them captains Otto Kotsebu, Fyodor Litke, and Vasili Golovnin.
Among them were seafarers and traders as well as medical professionals such as Alexei Sherbakov, who served as a surgeon in the Chilean Navy during the War of the Pacific.
[2] Motivations for the recent migration include opportunities for small business, the ease of acquiring mortgages to purchase housing, as well as the weather.
[citation needed] They are employed as professors in educational centres, as well as in Chilean food export companies.
In the 1920s, Eleodoro Antipov founded the first Orthodox chapel, the Iglesia de la Santísima Trinidad, in Patronato; father Nicolas Kashnikoff also created the less well-known chapel of Our Lady of Kazan, which was later taken over by father Vladimir Uliantzeff.