Svin'in, Pavel Petrovich (8 June 1787- Apr. 1839), journalist, diplomat, and artist, was born in Russia, the son of Peter Sergeevich Svin'in, a lieutenant general in the Russian army. Pavel's background as provincial Russian nobility would provide him special opportunities during his lifetime. He was educated at the boarding school for nobility attached to Moscow University, where he studied mathematics, foreign languages, literature, history, law, and art. It was here that Svin'in began his serious study of art. Upon graduation from the boarding school, he did not enter civil service, as did most of his classmates, but studied art in St. Petersburg.

While there, Svin'in joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as a translator. In 1806 he was sent on his first mission with Admiral D. N. Seniavin's forces, against Napoleon, in the Mediterranean Sea. Around a dozen years later, Svin'in wrote Memoirs of the Fleet, about his time at sea and his love of the English culture, based on his experiences on brief port stops. Svin'in was awarded the Cross of St. Vladimir for his service. Between 1808 and 1811 the details of his life are uncertain; however, it is clear that Svin'in continued his duties in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and his study of art.

In September 1811 Svin'in was granted membership in the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, just days before he set sail for his new assignment in the second Russian diplomatic mission to the United States. His official duties consisted of being secretary and translator for the head of the mission, the nobleman Andrei Dashkov. Russia and the United States established official diplomatic relations in 1807 and exchanged their first diplomats in 1809. Svin'in served the mission, but his duties were relatively light, which left time to travel and write about the United States. He wrote several articles for the journal Port Folio in order to inform an American audience about Russian culture. As he was leaving the United States in 1813, he published Sketches of Moscow and St. Petersburg, a compilation of previously published articles from Port Folio, in English. He proudly boasted that Moscow was a place of hospitality and sophistication and that St. Petersburg was a city of great religious tolerance. Despite being an Anglophile, he applauded American self-government, acknowledging the United States' link to England but asserting that Americans "granted themselves many privileges and affirmed their own chosen form of government (Svin'in, p. 55)." He also applauded the American constitutional system by noting "it was proved to have been selected and inscribed by people of vast knowledge and of great virtues" (Svin'in, p. 56).

Not long after his return to Russia after nearly two years in the United States, he published an account of his experience, titled Opyt zhivopisnago puteshestviia po Sievernoi Amerike (An Illustrated Description of a Picturesque Journey Through North America) (1815). It is in this work that Svin'in revealed his varied impressions of America. One of his primary concerns was the development of the steamship. He asserted in his work that he had tried, but failed, to become the agent for the introduction of Robert Fulton's invention in Russia. However, this proved to be at least an exaggerated claim if not an outright lie. (Later in his life, he would become known as someone who exaggerated his own importance, which brought him ridicule in Russian society.)

He also expressed a mix of opinions on other aspects of American society, including the lives of its people, from Native Americans, to African Americans, to the Quakers of Philadelphia. Even though his book provided enticing detail about many American topics and experiences, it was confirmed that Svin'in probably did not personally witness all that he recorded. He was guilty of plagiarizing earlier travel accounts, contemporary news accounts, and stories he had heard from others. Despite this flaw, his impressions of America at this early stage reveal a view of America formed two decades before the historian Alexis de Tocqueville made his more famous visit.

In addition to his written works, Svin'in left more than thirty watercolor paintings of various American scenes: the streets of Philadelphia, Niagara Falls, African Americans leaving church, steamships, full-immersion baptisms. His paintings add a fascinating dimension to his look at America.

One of the most famous parts of Opyt zhivopisnago puteshestviia po Sievernoi Amerike is the description of his journey back to Europe in 1813, as the escort of the exiled French general Jean Victor Moreau. His praise of Moreau's leadership and character bordered on hero worship. He even re-created the encounter between Emperor Alexander I of Russia and his new French general, now in service to defeat Napoleon. Moreau's quick and tragic death from battle wounds sent Svin'in into further glorifying adulation.

Once back in Russia, Svin'in continued in government service until 1824. In 1818 he founded one of Russia's most famous journals, Otechestvennye zapiski (Notes of the Fatherland), which he would publish until 1830. This journal became one of the primary publications for debate in elite Russian society, with a distinctively conservative and pro-monarchy perspective. Svin'in's account of the coronation of the new Russian emperor, Nicholas I, in 1826 was one of the most glorifying and positive accounts on record. Svin'in suspended publication in 1830 for financial reasons and returned to his family estate for about eight years, where he continued to write and collect antiquities. Many contemporary authors, especially Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol, used Svin'in as a character model in their writings, usually for an overly enthusiastic and inept bureaucrat. In 1838 Svin'in returned to St. Petersburg to restart Otechestvennye zapiski. He died nearly bankrupt.

Svin'in's account of his experience in the United States was the first by a Russian official and one of the earliest observations by a foreigner of the new nation.

For nearly a century after his death, Svin'in was nearly forgotten in Russia and abroad. In the 1920s his writing and art were rediscovered, published in Avrahm Yarmolinsky, Picturesque United States of America, 1811, 1812, 1813; Being a Memoir of Paul Svinin, Russian Diplomatic Officer, Artist, and Author, Containing Copious Excerpts from His Account of His Travels in America, with Fifty-two Reproductions of Water Colors in His Own Sketch-Book (1930). More recently, some of his writing and artwork on America were reproduced in Pavel Svin'in, Traveling across North America, 1812-1813: Watercolors by the Russian Diplomat Pavel Svin'in (1992). An account of Svin'in's life and work (including an annotated translation of his American experience) is presented in Pavel Svin'in, A Russian Paints America: The Travels of Pavel P. Svin'in, 1811-1813 (2008), introduced and edited by Marina Swoboda and William Benton Whisenhunt. More than thirty of Svin'in's watercolors of the United States are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.