Sanemon (; ) was a Japanese castaway who drifted ashore in

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

with nine others in 1710. After being immured for a period in the fortress of Verkhne-Kamchatsk, in 1713 he joined Ivan Petrovitch Kozyrevski's expedition to the northern

Kuriles The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the ...

. The following year he was sent to

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, where he is said to have become

Dembei Dembei ( ''Dembei'', ) was a Japanese castaway who, through Vladimir Atlasov, provided Russia with some of its first knowledge of Japan. Biography He was a merchant clerk accompanying a fleet of "thirty transports laden with goods for Edo," which ...

's assistant at the Japanese language school founded in the city by

Peter the Great Peter I (, ; – ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...

References

{{Reflist Castaways Japanese emigrants to Russia Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Japan–Russia relations People of the Edo period