Cultural Scenario of Contact with Oriental Martial Arts in Soviet Period

Purpose: Japanese martial art karate had become widely popular in USSR (despite its isolation policy) and even produced a phenomenon of ‘soviet karate’, which managed to survive the period of direct prohibition. Indeed, there were channels of karate knowledge transition back in the days.
Methods: Autobiographies help to deeply understand historical reality, and its’ comparison – to determine important factors and boundaries of scenario. Publicism in martial arts serves an important purpose of explaining philosophy and history which can’t be explained during training sessions.
Results: The analysis of autobiographies of A.I. Tanyushkin and V.A. Natarov shows that they were able to find a way of learning martial arts in difficult conditions. This way with all variability forms a single scenario: getting to know karate; looking
for a teacher and a gym; seeking formal symbolism (kimono); search of deep and spiritual practice and contact with Japanese and Japanese culture.
Discussion: This article rise a question of cultural transitions and cross-cultural understanding. Although karate was an alien concept to soviet people, it had become widely popular phenomenon. The roots of this popularity should be found in analysis of first-hand impressions which could be found in autobiographies.