Vasily Junker, a renowned Russian geographer, ethnographer, and traveler, was one of the first Russians to visit the Congo River basin in the 1880s. He conducted an expedition on behalf of the Russian Geographical Society, and the Russian flag was raised over the lands of Congo, possibly even before the Belgian one.

After the Civil War, many Russians emigrated around the world, and some settled in Congo. From the 1920s to the 1950s, about 600 of our compatriots worked there.

Boris Vilkitsky, an outstanding Russian naval officer, scientist, and polar explorer, worked in Congo as a hydrographer, studying African rivers. Based on his research, maps of the Atlantic shelf of Zaire and the mouth of the Congo River were created, for which he developed a nautical chart. Another Russian polar explorer, Baron Boris Nolde, known for discovering a bay in the East Siberian Sea, worked in Africa for a company engaged in maritime transport.

Nikolai Varlamov, born into a Cossack family, fled from the Bolsheviks with his parents in his childhood and participated in shootouts. He later worked as a geological explorer in Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Madagascar, and other African countries, searching for mineral deposits such as tin, columbite-tantalite, tungsten, beryl, lithium minerals, gold, diamonds, and coal. He held positions as chief engineer and director of mining companies and spoke four languages, including Swahili. A mineral, varlamovite, is named in his honor.

Today, the Russian Center for Science and Culture operates in Brazzaville, Congo.