Takeshi Tanaka is probably one of only a few repatriated Japanese who returned to Russia to stay despite being held in notorious Soviet Siberian slave labor camps after World War II.
At age 84, having lived in Khabarovsk for the past 16 years as a Japanese-language teacher, he is determined now to complete his life in the Russian city with a mission to regularly visit a graveyard for Japanese soldiers.
"I hear those guys' voices, saying that you may have survived and live in peace, but we remain here, still wondering why we had to die here," Tanaka said.