apricops:

Some of you may remember the story of Dembei, a Japanese fisherman who wound up in Kamchatka after a storm and was brought to none other than Peter the Great and became the first person to teach the Japanese language in Russia, despite just wanting to go back home and get back to work.

A detail I had missed the first time I heard it is that Dembei was from Osaka, home to a very distinct and well-known regional dialect. I, personally, love the mental image of a Russian diplomat going to Japan, grinning and smug with his secret knowledge of their language, and then introducing himself with the equivalent of “Ey, Daimyo, I’m walkin’ here!”