Russian Scientists and Engineers Migrated To Mexico in 1920s and 1930s
There is a Russian-descended community living in Polanco neighborhood in Miguel Hidalgo, D.F.. One of the eldest families of this community is the Pavel I Trofimoff's (1896–1991).
Some Russian exiles, that arrived escaping from WWI, the fall of the Russian Empire and the civil war (1917–1919) were extremely important as pioneers of the beginning of the Petroleum and Chemistry Industry and the Biology Research as well as in the modernization of the mining in the country about 1920-1940s.
Professor Dmitry Sokoloff, was born on Lvov, Ukraine, but raised in Moscow, where he married Sophia Solovieva in 1918. Since 1916 he worked in his PhD in Biology at the Imperial University of Tokyo sponsored by an exchange scholarship granted by the Japanese government to Lomonosov University graduates. Forced to move due to the big earthquake of Tokyo 1921, he arrived to Mexico with his family in 1922 through the harbor of Colima.
Dr Sokoloff lived in Toluca and in Tacubaya, Mexico city in the 1930s and 1940s. He was founder of the Biology Department of the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico, at Mexico city, and Faculty until late 1940s when he migrated to Chicago, Illinois. His wife Sophia Sokoloff, from Tobolsk (Siberia), was musician, pianist and worked with the National conservatory of Mexico city during 1940s and with the University of Chicago on 1950s.
His son Dr Alexander Sokoloff (1920–2011) born in Tokyo (Japan), but raised in Mexico City, and Pasadena California. He graduated in Zoology PhD program from University of Chicago in 1955. After a very successful career in Genetics research in the United States he became Emeritus Professor of Biology at the California State University at San Bernardino.
His sister Nina Helen Sokoloff (1923–2011), also born in Tokyo, studied in the American School of Mexico city and Graduate Master of Biology at the Loyola University, had a very extensive career as an Educator in the Chicago city College system from 1950s to 1980s. As an author she was activist of the Mexican-American cultural exchange in Chicago, promoting and funding the exchange of many Mexican students to attend graduate studies at University of Chicago.
Wilhem Ambrosimoff, a Mining Estonian Engineer born in the 1880s in Tallinn, came to Mexico in 1921 through the city of Laredo, Texas. He worked during the 1930s in the states of Zacatecas and Hidalgo, doing a huge contribution to the modernization of the silver mining in Mexico. He worked many years working for the Real del Monte mines Company in Pachuca, capital city of the State of Hidalgo. He finished his career retired in the Mexico state in the region of Valle de Bravo, where he was realtor and died in 1971. His widow Maria Jordi-Ambrosimoff a German-Estonian immigrant, that continue working as a Realtor in Valle de Bravo and in Iztapan de la Sal, survived him until 1975 to die in the Geriatric house of the German Colony at the south of Mexico city.
Vladimir (Olhovich) Olhovsky and Pavel Trofimoff came both to Veracruz Mexico almost at the end of 1920, but they worked in separate companies carrying out search for potential oil fields in the region of Tehuantepec. Olhovsky worked in the beginnings of the activities of the National Mexican Petroleum company(PEMEX), while Trofimoff worked for a Royal Dutch Company subsidiary ( Compania Mexicana de Petroleos El Aguila SA) before the Nationalization carried out by President Lazaro Cardenas del Rio.
Pavel Ilya Trofimoff-Sazanoff got a Topographic Engineer Degree from the Penza University in Russia in 1916. He was related with Ivan Trofimoff famous Locomotive Engineer, who invented in 1927 the Trofimoff valve used extensively in trains all around the world. Since 1920 he was hired by Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian in France to work in petroleum exploration, working in different countries alternatively for Royal Dutch Company and Shell Company.
Vladimir Olhovsky became the first Petroleum Engineer graduated in the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1925.
Read more about this topic: Russian Immigration To Mexico
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