The Bronze Horseman as Seen by Japanese Sailors Who Found Themselves in Russia in 1794

The illustration is found in the 11th scroll of the Japanese manuscript "Kankai ibun", or "Strange Tidings of the Seas Surrounding [the Earth]", compiled from the interrogations of sailors who were returned to Japan together with the Russian embassy in 1805.

At the end of 1793 the merchant ship "Wakamiya-maru" set out from Ishinomaki for Edo, but was carried off to the Aleutian Islands. The surviving sailors were picked up by members of the Russian-American Company and taken to Okhotsk; from Okhotsk they made their way to Yakutsk, and then to Irkutsk, where they lived for 8 years. Four of them, with the permission of Alexander I, joined Rezanov's embassy to Japan.

Report a translation error

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

The Bronze Horseman as Seen by Japanese Sailors Who Found Themselves in Russia in 1794

Read more

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s