Robert Long started work for the "Westminster Gazette" early in his career, circa 1898, when he first went to Russia, and stayed with them until the paper folded. In 1899, he returned to Russia to report on the famine there as a special correspondent for the "Daily Chronicle". By this time, Robert Long's considerable linguistic talents began to emerge. Already conversant in French, he began to study Russian. During 1904 and 1905, he returned to "Russia as special correspondent of New York American."