Russian-Paraguayan relations and the first Russian emigration to Paraguay (second half of the 19th - early 20th century)

The first diplomatic contacts between the Russian Empire and the Republic of Paraguay were established in 1862 during the reign of Paraguayan President Francisco Solano Lopez and Russian Emperor Alexander II. Official diplomatic relations were established in 1909. The first Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Russian Empire in the Republic of Paraguay was Mauritius Prozor. The Paraguayan government encouraged the immigration of foreigners after the War of the Triple Alliance. The country found itself in a crisis with a small population, as well as a political and economic crisis. The government took steps to boost the national economy by issuing a law on the sale of state lands on February 9, 1872. This law also created the Immigration Bureau, which allowed the sale and purchase of land. The law marked the beginning of immigration, which attracted many foreigners who took advantage of the opportunity to buy land at low prices. The first Russian to emigrate to Paraguay in 1902 was . was a lawyer, economist, mathematician and journalist, Dr. Rodolfo Ritter, who was born in Moscow in 1864 to a noble family. In Paraguay, he devoted himself to the creation and management of a weekly newspaper called "The Paraguayan Economist". From 1924 to 1928, he was a technical adviser to the Ministry of Finance and contributed to the creation in 1916 of the Bureau of Currency Exchange, which later became the Central Bank of Paraguay - the first state bank of Paraguay. The deepening of ties with the Russian Empire occurred during the presidency of Eduardo Scherer Vera y Aragon (entrepreneur, publisher and politician of liberal political ideology), which in the near future allowed the arrival of the first white Russian emigrants to Paraguay.