Despite repeated protests and an expressed desire to return to Japan, Dembei was taken to Moscow by Vladimir Atlasov in December 1701 or January 1702 and ordered by Peter the Great to teach Japanese to a small group of young Russian men.
[10] Soon afterwards, Serge Elisséeff would become the first Russian to undergo higher education in Japan, graduating from Tokyo Imperial University in 1912; however, he did not return to Russia, but instead remained overseas, taking up a post at the Sorbonne in 1917.
Notable scholars killed during this period include Yevgeny Polivanov, designer of the official system for the Cyrillization of Japanese,[11] and Nikolai Nevskii, who specialised in Okinawan studies.
[8] Later, during the Nikita Khrushchev era, increasing numbers of Russians went back to Japan as international students, but few returned to become teachers, due to the low salaries.
[18] In 2006, the list of test sites was further expanded to include Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk; the number of examinees also showed record growth, more than doubling as compared to the previous year.