A three-days 21th Annual International Conference “History and Culture of Japan” took place in Moscow at the Higher School of Economics on February 18-20, 2019. The conference was organized by the Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies of the Higher School of Economics. Over 70 papers were presented. The topics discussed during the conference included history, philology, arts, religion, philosophy, etc. The 1st conference, organized by professor Alexandr N. Meshcheryakov, was held in May 1998. It was a one-day forum, and just 14 papers were presented. Since then, the conference has broadened both its geographical scope and the number of participants. It transformed into, first, a two-day and then a three-day forum. 13 volumes of selected papers were published, 12 of them in “Orientalia et Classica. Papers of the Institute of Oriental and Classical Studies” series. As of now, the conference papers are published annually. The conference is a key event in Russian Japanology and the most representative forum in this field throughout the post-Soviet space.