Afro-Russian

Afro-Russians (Russian: афророссияне) are Black people, including Black people who have settled in Russia and their mixed-race children. The Metis Foundation estimates that there are about 40,000 Afro-Russians.

During the Russian Empire

There are very few recorded instances of Black Africans settling down in the Russian Empire. A notable member of this small group is Abram Petrovich Gannibal, an African emancipated and adopted by Peter the Great, given education, raised to nobility, and served in both civil and military capacities. He is also a great-grandfather on the maternal side to the famed Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

Early Soviet period

After the revolution several Black African and mixed-race families came to the Soviet Union under the auspices of the Comintern. They were chiefly specialists in the spheres of industrial production and agriculture. The technical equipment, modest means, and professional experience brought by them were an appreciable contribution to economic development of a new state. Among them were Oliver John Golden and his wife Bertha (he brought with him a group of 16 Afro-American experts in the cultivation of cotton), well-known African-American poet Langston Hughes with a group of 22 filmmakers, Paul Robeson with his family and many others. Some of them stayed in Russia and their descendants still live there.