The article analyzes the perception of Japan in the middle of the 19th century through the eyes of the Russian writer Ivan Goncharov. As secretary of Yevfimiy Putyatin’s mission (who concluded the first Russian-Japanese treaty in 1855), he kept travel notes, which later turned into a famous essay about a trip to Japan. The study is based on a rare edition of “Russians in Japan”, published in 1855, a few years before the appearance of the famous book “Frigate Pallada”. Goncharov’s notes marked the beginning of a new stage of awareness about Japan in the Russian Empire. His impressions added new colors to the portrayal of the country of Rising Sun, which Russians already knew from notes about the captivity of Vasily Golovnin (1816) and the three-volume work of the famous German Japanologist Philipp Franz von Siebold (1854).
The valuable edition of Goncharov’s notes from the Library of the Faculty of Asian and African Studies of St. Petersburg State University (with an inscription from the author to Putyatin) differs from the text in the “Frigate Pallada” that was subjected to severe revision. Unlike this later version, this one, in many ways, resembles the unredacted travel notes made by Gonncharov during the Putyatin’s mission. Also, Iosif Goshkevich, who mastered the Japanese language during his stay in the country, accompanied Yevfimiy Putyatin as an interpreter. “Russian-Japanese Dictionary” (in fact, it is a Japanese-Russian dictionary) was published by him in collaboration with Tachibana Kosai in 1857. Two copies of this dictionary are available in the faculty’s Library (with autographs). One was a gift from Nicholas of Japan, and another - from the faculty teacher Kurono Yoshibumi. The authors aim to familiarize the general public with these rarities of the Library, which date back to the time of the conclusion of the first treaty between Russia and Japan and are directly related to the beginning of Russia’s in-depth acquaintance with Japan.