Boris Alexandrovich Bakhmeteff (Russian: Борис Александрович Бахметев) (also spelled Bakhmetieff or Bakhmetev) (1880- July 21, 1951)[1] was an engineer, businessman, professor of Civil Engineering at Columbia University and the only ambassador of the Russian Provisional Government to the United States.[2] He was unrelated to his predecessor as ambassador, George Bakhmeteff.[3] His wife Helen died in 1921.[4] His position as ambassador was recognized by the US government until his resignation in June 1922,[5] when he established the Lion Match Company with other Russian immigrants.[2] He introduced the concept of specific energy in hydraulics in his thesis and book Hydraulics of Open Channels.[6] In 1947 he received the Norman Medal of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The Russian archives and a professorship of Russian at Columbia are named after him, as is a Harvard research fellowship in hydraulics.