The first Russian diplomatic agency in the Bulgarian lands can be considered to be the Russian consulate which functioned during the second half of the 18th century in the Black Sea port town of Varna. It was established by a decree of Catherine II, issued in Saint Petersburg on December 1, 1784. The decree said that the newly established Russian consulate in the European territory of the Ottoman Empire was meant to promote the trade relations between the two countries and protect the Russian subjects residing there. Captain Georgi Milkovich was appointed as first consul in Varna. He is believed to have been a Bulgarian with Russian citizenship.

After the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829, a Russian consulate was also opened in Sliven with vice consul Veshtenko. In 1838 he was commissioned to Bucharest and the consulate was closed.

The first Russian consulate in Varna was also temporarily closed. It was reopened in 1848 with the rank of vice consulate. The Russian ambassador in Constantinople Titov appointed as consul in Varna the trader who supplied the Russian imperial squadron in the Aegean, Lukash Svilarich, who volunteered to take this post. The diplomatic jurisdiction of the vice consulate covered the whole Bulgarian Black Sea coast, north-eastern and most of northern Bulgaria. Svilarich built up a network of his representatives and collaborators in many Bulgarian towns. His collaborator in Anhialo (Pomorie) was Antonio Iconomo, in Balchik – Giovanni Comneno, and in Shumen – the local teacher and bookman Hristo Mihaylov Zlatev, who had a document authorizing him to represent the Russian vice consulate before the Turkish authorities and protect its interests in Shumen district. As a reward for the conscientious fulfilment of his obligations, Hristo Zlatev was presented to the Russian ambassador in Constantinople, who awarded him and guaranteed his security.

After the Crimean War (1856) Russia opened its consulates in the Bulgarian towns of Vidin and Plovdiv. Alexander Viktorovich Rachinsky was appointed vice consul in Varna in the late 1859, also known as author of a number of articles on Bulgaria and the Bulgarians. He was succeeded by the Bulgarian Nikola Daskalov, who briefly acted as charge d’affaires of the Russian vice consulate in Varna, where previously he had been secretary and translator. In the summer of 1862 Alexander Alexandrovich Olkhin was appointed vice consul in Varna, who was hitherto secretary of the Russian consulate in Vidin. He was sympathetic to the Bulgarians’ struggles for church independence and national liberation. Olkhin left this post in August 1865, and in early March 1867 Vassiliy Ivanovich Nyagin came to replace him.

In the autumn of 1857 the newly opened Russian consulate in Plovdiv was headed by the great Bulgarian patriot and educator Naiden Gerov, who occupied this responsible position for nearly twenty years – until 1877.

In 1862 Russia opened its consulate in Turnovo. Vassiliy F. Kozhevnikov was appointed as first Russian consul there. In 1865 the Russian consulate with consul Lonchenkov moved from Turnovo to Rousse. In 1868 A. Moshin was appointed consul and he remained in Rousse till the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, which brought the liberation of Bulgaria.

By order of the Russian embassy in Constantinople, as of June 4, 1871, the Varna and Vidin vice consulates were closed. Only a consular agent was left in each, directly subordinated to the general consulate in Rousse.

The presence of Russian consuls in a number of Bulgarian towns raised the spirit of the local population and strengthened its faith in the liberation and imminent restoration of the Bulgarian state after nearly five centuries of political injustice and spiritual oppression. The hopes for their liberation that the Bulgarians set on Russia were grounded in the numerous wars Russia waged on the Ottoman Empire. In all treaties which Russia concluded with Turkey there were clauses in defence of the Orthodox Christians subjects of the Ottoman Empire.

The work of the Russian consulates in the Bulgarian lands in these times was in unison with Russia’s policy towards the southern Slavs, oriented to consolidation of its positions where the economic and cultural influences penetrating from Europe were competing. This policy of patronization of the Christian peoples in the Balkan territories of Turkey found wide reverberation and support among those Bulgarian circles which assigned Russia an important role in their struggle for national liberation.

After the Liberation of Bulgaria as a result of the Russo-Turkish War 1877-1878, the adoption of the Bulgarian Constitution and the formation of the first Bulgarian government, first among the foreign diplomatic representatives who got an audience with the Bulgarian Prince was the Russian diplomatic agent and consul general Alexander Davidov. He solemnly presented his letters of credence to Prince Alexander Battenberg in the palace in Sofia on July 7, 1879.

Already in the first weeks of his appointment the Russian diplomatic agent had to solve a number of bilateral questions, concerning Russia’s interests in the Balkans and the Bulgarian efforts to solve some of the problems ensuing from the clauses of the Berlin Treaty, which represented a serious financial burden for the young Principality.

At the end of 1879, representatives of the Russian bankers Ginsburg and Polyakov asked to be commissioned with the construction of the railway line connecting the capital Sofia with the Danube. The projects they proposed were unfavourable for Bulgaria, and the Russian government itself did not approve of them. Next year, in 1880 the Russian company Ginsburg-Struve presented a new project for the construction of a railway line Sofia-Lovech, Sevlievo-Turnovo-Rousse, with branches from Sofia to the border with Serbia, Turnovo-Tryavna, and Botevgrad-Oryahovo. The Russian government found this project good but did not interfere and waited for the Bulgarian government to take its own decision. This project, strongly supported by Petko Karavelov, was opposed by Dragan Tsankov and General Ernrot, who backed the French project for construction of a railway line Svishtov-Turnovo-Nova Zagora. The two projects became the object of heated disputes in the Bulgarian political and economic circles. The Bulgarian Prince, complying with the Berlin Treaty and the pressure exerted by Austro-Hungary, decided that a railway line Sofia-Turnovo will be built, and sought financial resources for it from Russia.

In 1880, taking into account the drastically deteriorated relations between Greece and Monte Negro with Turkey and encouraged by the fact that the Liberal Party headed by Gladstone came to power in England, Prince Alexander Battenberg undertook probing of the opinion of the Great Powers regarding a future union of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia. At the end of May 1880, the Prince visited Petersburg at the head of a Bulgarian delegation for the funeral of the Russian Empress. He had meetings with Russian diplomats and statesmen on the issue of the fate of Eastern Rumelia. The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Girs warned the Bulgarian Prince that the unionist movement in Eastern Rumelia was premature. He advised him to take no action in this direction because, with the existing situation in Europe and disapproval on the part of the Great Powers, such a step would not be backed by Russia.

European politicians familiar with the positions of Austro-Hungary and Germany also advised the Bulgarian Prince to approach very cautiously the issue of the union of the Bulgarian Principality and Eastern Rumelia and take no action without the approval of Russia.