The South African direction has been significant for Russian emigration for over a hundred years. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, mainly Jews from Russia came here, attracted by new opportunities and economic growth that swept the Cape Colony and Boer republics after the discovery of rich gold and diamond deposits. As a result, many South African Jews can boast of Russian roots.

Until the late 1980s, information about Russians in South Africa was quite limited, as the Russian diaspora remained small. Before the 'perestroika' in the USSR and the subsequent large wave of emigration, the number of Russians in South Africa hardly exceeded a few hundred. According to approximate data, before World War II, about 20 Russians lived in Johannesburg, the key city of South Africa, and by the end of the 1950s, their number had increased to 50.

In the pre-war and post-war years, Russians arrived in South Africa from important centers of Russian emigration such as France, Germany, and Yugoslavia. They were familiar with the forms of uniting Russian refugees in these countries and may have participated in the activities of emigration organizations. They were close to the idea of preserving Russian and Orthodox heritage in themselves and their children as a way to avoid assimilation and maintain their identity.

Among the major South African businessmen were Russian immigrants. For example, the Tumany sisters, who arrived in South Africa in 1951 from Italy, achieved success in cosmetics production. Konstantin Mikhailovich Lashchin owned a car company in the 1960s and 1970s. Nina Alexandrovna Shvetsova headed one of the largest asbestos mining companies during the same years. Mikhail Sergeevich Sviridov, a graduate of the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineers, owned a large engineering company that still exists today. Konstantin Konstantinovich Vladykin, the son of General K.I. Vladykin, served as the director of several large mining enterprises. Mikhail Dmitrievich Bibikov, the elder of the Russian nobility in South Africa, was the first to professionally train guide dogs for the blind and headed the PR department of the South African branch of IBM for about two decades.