"This is what we discovered: that a foreigner can really understand such a complex country as Japan, identify our strengths and weaknesses and describe them so vividly to the readers at home".

The author of "A Sakura Branch" – Vsevolod Ovchinnikov – lived a long and eventful life, seven years of which he spent in Japan. Having graduated from the Red Army's Military Institute of Foreign Languages, he worked as a special correspondent of the "Pravda" newspaper in China, Japan, Great Britain – and brought from each of them tons of essays dedicated to culture, religion, traditions and arts of each country.

First printed in 1970, "A Sakura Branch" has lived through several editions, and now its cognitive value is completed with the nostalgic one. Even if the main pillar of the Japanese national character remained the same, the daily life of the country has changed drastically, and many of the things described by Vsevolod Ovchinnikov are no longer present in it.