V. P. Vasilyev

The tradition of oriental studies at St.Petersburg University dates back to the early nineteenth century. In March 1818 the University began offering courses in Arabic and Persian to its students. As time went by the number of courses in Oriental languages increased and on 8 September 1855 the Faculty of Oriental Studies was inaugurated. From then on, the Faculty takes pride in having had among its academic staff such outstanding scholars, specialists in Oriental languages, literature and history as O.I.Senkovsky, A.K.Kazembek, K.P.Patkanov, D.A.Hvolson, V.P.Vasiliev, I.P.Minaev, P.M.Melioransky, V.R.Pozen, V.V.Radlov, K.G.Zaleman,V.D.Smirnov, V.A.Zhukovsky, B.A.Turaev, V.V.Bartold who were among its founders. Since autumn 1919 instruction in orientalist disciplines was given at different subdivisions of the Faculty of History and Philology. The Faculty of Oriental Studies was fully reinstated in 1944.
http://www.orient.pu.ru/eorient.htm

In 1939 the library (since 1925 the Lenin State Library) received the collection of the Russian Imperial diplomatic mission (1861-1917). This collection is the second after the Skachkov's one with regard to the number of books and value. It numbers about 6,000 (six thousand) block-books. This way the library added many encyclopaedias, historical works and codes of laws to its collection. At the same time the library received the collection of the Russian Peking religious mission (1715-1922). Despite the damage suffered by the collection during the so-called boxers' insurrection (1901) the Lenin State Library received several valuable publications on history, geography and the Chinese law. At the Chinese book market the mission staff members regularly acquired the most important editions which they needed for their scientific and translation work. It is known that the famous Russian sinologists Yakinf Bichurin, Palladii Kafarov, V.P.Vasiliev, translators A.Leontyev, I.Rassokhin and others worked at the mission and the contents of the collection reflects this fact.
http://wason.library.cornell.edu/iaol/Vol.43/kazantsev.htm