Following the discussion on VN and Japan, I can add that my article
"Vladimir Nabokov's Japan" appeared in "Krug" (The Nabokov Society of
Japan Newsletter), Vol. II (2), 2001, pp. 1-9. The paper traces VN's
references to Japan in his works of both Russian and American periods.
I noted there that the Russian pioneers who had studied the islands of
Japan bore, by a curious coincidence, "Nabokovian" names: Fyodor
Luzhin and Ivan Evreinov. Luzhin and Evreinov's expedition was set up
by Peter the Great's order in 1719 with the mission to gather
scientific data about Japan. It might be even possible that Evreinov
was a distant relative of Vladimir Nabokov [Anastasia Ivanovna
Nabokova was married to the brigade-general Petr Gerasimovich Evreinov
(1722-1787)]. Nabokov could learn this fact from S. Novakovsky's book,
"Japan and Russia," published in 1918.