When studying Russian-Chinese relations, many aspects are covered through the prism of state interests. The essay tells how knowledge of China and practical Oriental studies became important corrective elements of the foreign policy of the Russian Empire and later of Soviet Russia / USSR. Here a large role was played by people with professional oriental education, but there were few of these at all times; therefore, part of the information resource was also occupied by the testimony of publicists, scientists, travelers, whose names are quite well known, and we are rediscovering some of the names and achievements of lesser-known people. It can be said that the main information about Ching China (the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) came to the Russian press thanks to writers and journalists. Of the most popular, we can recall the travel essays of Ivan A. Goncharov Frigate ‘Pallas', the novels of the writer Aleksei S. Novikov-Priboy, the stories of the traveler M. Shcherbakov and many others. For the period from the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries a gigantic literature has been accumulated on the history of Russian-Chinese relations of different historical epochs, which include memoirs, reports, reports of diplomats and reviewers, impressions of travelers, and a huge number of articles by journalists and reporters on China. In turn, all this information required the generalization, selection and analysis of specialist scientists, who began to create their work from the second half of the nineteenth century to the present day. At different periods of their lives and activities, these people discovered eastern countries for themselves and generously shared knowledge with compatriots. Materials for the essay include archival research, Russian periodicals in China, and published works of oriental scholars, travel notes and memoirs.