On 23 July 1920, the first ship from Vladivostok with Polish children evacuated from Siberia arrived in Tsuruga, Japan. By 1922, a total of more than 700 kids had arrived in the Land of the Cherry Blossom. Their first stops were the cities of Tsuruga and Osaka.

On the night of 6 to 7 July (24/25 June old style) 1866, 5,000 kilometres east of their homeland, a group of January insurgents sent to Baikal for penal labour stirred up a rebellion, disarmed their guards and tried to forge an escape route to Mongolia.