Japanese people in Russia
 A kimono-clad woman walks down Vladivostok's Svetlanskaya Street, c. 1910
|
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 1700 (2010) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Moscow, Vladivostok, and other large cities | |
| Languages | |
| Russian, Japanese | |
| Religion | |
| Buddhism, Shintoism, Orthodox Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Japanese diaspora |
Japanese people in Russia form a small part of the worldwide community of Nikkeijin, consisting mainly of Japanese expatriates and their descendants born in Russia. They count various notable political figures among their number.
The first Japanese person to settle in Russia is believed to have been Dembei, a fisherman stranded on the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1701 or 1702. Unable to return to his native Ōsaka due to the Tokugawa Shogunate's sakoku policy, he was instead taken to Moscow and ordered by Peter the Great to begin teaching the language as soon as possible; he thus became the father of Japanese language education in Russia. Japanese settlement in Russia remained sporadic, confined to the Russian Far East, and also of a largely unofficial character, consisting of fishermen who, like Dembei, landed there by accident and were unable to return to Japan. However, a Japanese trading post is known to have existed on the island of Sakhalin (then claimed by the Qing Dynasty, but controlled by neither Japan, China, nor Russia) as early as 1790.
Following the opening of Japan, Vladivostok would become the focus of settlement for Japanese emigrating to Russia. A branch of the Japanese Imperial Commercial Agency (日本貿易事務官 Nihon bōeki Jimukan?) was opened there in 1876. Their numbers grew to 80 people in 1877 and 392 in 1890; women outnumbered men by a factor of 3:2, and many worked as prostitutes. However, their community remained small compared to the more numerous Chinese and Korean communities; an 1897 Russian government survey showed 42,823 Chinese, 26,100 Koreans, but only 2,291 Japanese in the whole of the Primorye area. A large portion of the migration came from villages in northern Kyūshū.
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Wikipedia