The first Ambassador of Russia to Austria was Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Golitsyn and he served in this position from 1763 until 1792. Gallitzinstraße, the street where his ambassadorial villa was located is named after him. In 1792 Count Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky became ambassador in Vienna, where he kept contact with representatives of the , politicians and artists. While in Vienna, he built the Palais Rasumofsky, and also financed construction of a stone bridge across the Danube. As a patron of the arts, Razumovsky established an art gallery, and commissioned Beethoven to compose the famous Razumovsky string quartets.
Austria is closely linked to the fate of prominent Russian diplomat and statesman Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov. He arrived in Vienna in 1833 as an adviser to the embassy, and, from 1854 to 1856, he led the Russian diplomatic mission. Gorchakov became Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Austrian court at the most difficult period for Russia during the Crimean War, during which time he was able to preserve diplomatic relations with Austria and helped to overcome the international isolation of the Russian Empire and reinforced Russia's status as a great power. The Vienna Conference in 1855 was the first presence of Gorchakov in an international forum, and his performance in representing Russia at the Paris Conference of 1856 saw Alexander II appoint him as Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs.