Aleksei Semenovich Agafonov

A native of Siberia, he was a member of the clergy. After finishing his studies at the Tobolsk Church seminary he was sent to Beijing as a pupil at the Russian spiritual mission and stayed there from 1771 until 1782. One of the compilers of “Zhurnal sekretnykh deistvii namerenii sluchaev i peremen byvshikh v Taitsinskom gosudarstve s 1772 po 1782 god” (“The Journal of secret actions, intentions, cases and changes, which occurred in Taitsin state from 1772 to 1782”). On his return to Russia, he was appointed translator for the Collegium of Foreign Affairs.