Russians in France

The Église Saint-Nicolas-et-Sainte-Alexandra [fr] was consecrated on December 31, 1859 in the city of Nice, which at that time had more than 45 000 inhabitants and was part with its County of the Kingdom of Sardinia, belonging to the House of Savoy, before being annexed to the French Empire by plebiscite a few months later in April 1860.

In December 1912, half a century later, the Russian Orthodox Cathedral would be consecrated in memory of Nicholas Alexandrovich, Tsarevich of Russia, who died in Nice.

Political refugees, White émigrés gathered around charities like the Zemgor Committee and the company of the Russian Red Cross, the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute (founded in 1924) and the Action chrétienne des étudiants russes (ACER ) (1926), which provided to their community an associative link, political and religious, as well as material aid.

The ship "Rion", carrying some 3422 refugees (Russians, Ukrainians and Cossacks) from Constantinople to Brazil had stopped in Ajaccio, on May 15, 1921 at 2 am.

On May 25, 10 days after the arrival of the ship, some 600 refugees were finally allowed to land and settle at the Livrelli barracks, located in the center of Ajaccio.