As early as 1843, Russia was considered a prospective mission field. Orson Hyde and George J. Adams were called to go to Russia by the Prophet Joseph Smith, but their mission was aborted when the Prophet was martyred a short time later.

In 1895, Elder August Joel Hoglund, a native of Sweden, was sent to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he arrived June 9. He met with the Johan M. Lindelof family and baptized Johan and his wife, Alma, on June 11 in the river Neva. The Lindelof family was visited periodically and in 1903, Elder Francis M. Lyman of the Council of the Twelve and then president of the European Mission, accompanied by Joseph J. Cannon, visited the family in St. Petersburg.Upon his return to mission headquarters in Liverpool, England, Elder Lyman sent to Russia a missionary, Mischa Markow, a Hungarian who had previously pioneered missionary work in Serbia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Elder Markow registered with the district court and then preached to Germans in Riga, Latvia, on Oct. 9, 1903, and three families requested baptism. However, when he was summoned to court, he chose instead to leave the country, according to earlier instructions from Elder Lyman. The Lindelof family was dispersed during the revolution of 1918.

On April 27, 1919, Andrew Hasberg, a member of the U.S. Expeditionary Forces in World War I, was baptized in a lake about four miles south of Vladivostok, Russia, by Thomas E. Hunsaker.

Yuri and Ludmilla Terebenin and their daughter Anna of Leningrad were among the first converts in Russia. They heard about the Church during a trip to Budapest, Hungary, where they were baptized on July 1, 1989. Other converts were baptized in Helsinki, Finland, by Finnish member-missionaries. Among the member-missionaries was Leena Laitinen, a returned missionary fluent in Russian who lived in Leningrad for a time. She gathered a group of investigators and taught them the missionary lessons.

Following visits to Leningrad by Elder Hans B. Ringger of the Seventy and mission presidents Steven R. Mecham of the Finland Helsinki Mission and Dennis B. Neuenschwander of the Austria Vienna East Mission (now of the Seventy), two missionaries, Elders Kevin A. Dexter of Orem, Utah, and Elder David S. Reagan of Des Moines, Iowa, arrived in Leningrad at the end of January 1989 for a short stay, and to baptize Sister Laitinen's investigators. They baptized Anton Skripko, the first member baptized in Russia in modern times.

The first branch in Russia was organized in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) on Dec. 3, 1989. Afterwards, Elder Reagan and Elder Burt Dover of Phoenix, Ariz., were stationed in Leningrad.

Today, branches in Russia are located in Leningrad, Moscow and Vyborg.