After the commencement of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) construction, Russian influence began to spread extensively across Northeast China, including the timber industry of this region. In the area of northwestern Manchuria, one of the largest enterprises was the forestry concessions of M. M. and D. M. Vorontsov. In the 1920s, these concessions became public-private joint ventures of the CER Board, M. M. and D. M. Vorontsov, and the Chinese government. Following the start of the Japanese occupation and the establishment of Manchukuo, the Vorontsov forestry concessions initially operated under the previous system but were later nationalized by the Manchukuo government. After the end of World War II, in which China and the USSR were among the winners, and the formation of the Chinese Changchun Railway (CCR), the Administration of CCR-Vorontsov Forestry Concessions was established. In 1951, this Administration was transformed into the Yakeshi Lespromhoz of the CCR, and after the transfer of the CCR to China, the Lespromhoz also passed into the hands of Chinese administration. Materials from the Administration of CCR-Vorontsov Forestry Concessions and Yakeshi Lespromhoz from 1949–1953 are absent in all state archives of Russia and China. The author of this article managed to find them in an antique store in Harbin. These documents reveal that Russian influence on the timber industry of the Greater Khingan Range remained significant even after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The timber industry of Northeast China, long controlled first by the CER Board and various Russian private entrepreneurs, and later by the Japanese occupation authorities through Manchukuo, became a national asset of the Chinese people not after the victory over Japan in 1945 or the establishment of the PRC in 1949, but precisely after the abolition of the CCR in 1952. © 2025, Saint Petersburg State University. All rights reserved.