Dembei

Who is Dembei?

Dembei was a Japanese castaway who, through Vladimir Atlasov, provided Russia with some of its first knowledge of Japan. He was a merchant clerk accompanying a fleet of "thirty transports laden with goods for Edo," who, along with a number of others, had been caught in a storm; they found their way to Kamchatka, where only Dembei survived, to be found by Atlasov in 1701 or 1702. Despite pleading to be brought back to Japan, Dembei was instead brought to St. Petersburg, where he told Peter the Great what he could about Japan; he also began teaching the Japanese language to a few Russians, making him the father of Japanese language education in Russia. He was baptized under the name of Gabriel and spent the rest of his life in St. Petersburg.

As a poor fisherman from Osaka, it is doubtful that he had any inside knowledge of Japan's politics or military organization, or anything else that might prove particularly interesting or important to the Russians. Nevertheless, it whetted their appetite for exploration of Kamchatka and the Kurils, and for attempting to open up trade with Japan.