A survey of publications and collections databases reveals a pattern of non-indigenous decapods distribution in the 13 seas around Russia and adjacent countries. No alien species were reported from Russian territorial waters and exclusive economic zone in the Japan, Okhotsk, west Bering and most of the Siberian shelf Seas. From the seas and their basins in East Europe, 13 alien species have been recorded, with seven of these yet to become established. Established or commonly occurring species can be categorized as: ‘global invaders’ (Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis in the White, Baltic, Black, Azov and Caspian Seas; and Harris mud crab, Rhithropanopeus harrisii in all mentioned seas, except the White Sea); ‘regional aliens’ (Palaemon adspersus and P. elegans in the Caspian Sea and the latter species in the Baltic); and ‘Arctic invaders’ (Kamchatka king crab Paralithodes camtschaticus and snow crab Chionoecetes opilio). Eriocheir sinensis is the most widely occurring alien decapod species, but there are no indications of an established population in East Europe. For this and other mentioned crab species, invasion history, distribution and important biological data are reviewed. In the seas where few or no native crab species have been present, Harris mud crab (in the Azov and Caspian Seas), Kamchatka crab (in the Barents Sea) and snow crab (in the Barents and Kara Seas) have shown rapid establishment (within two decades) of an invasive population throughout an entire basis or its significant part.

A new species of Boholina, B. ganghwaensis sp. nov. is described, based on specimens collected from burrows of the manicure crab, Cleistostoma dilatatum, in the tidal flat of Ganghwa Island in western Korea. The new species is closely similar to B. purgata and B. parapurgata by having a pointed process on the posterior angles of the second and third pedigerous somites and a similar rostrum in the female, but can be distinguished from its congeners by the following characters: in females by the genital double-somite with small hook-like process on each gonoporal plate, the setation of the distal endopodal segment of mandible, the basis and first endopodal segment of the maxillule incompletely separated, the inner distal spine/outer terminal spine length ratio on P5; and in males by the distal spine present on the posterior surface of the basis of both P5 and the length/width ratio of the endopod of the right P5. This is the first Bololina species recorded from the north-west Pacific.

This article explores Russian perceptions of ‘America’ as they emerged in the eighteenth century when traders, explorers, and scholars approached the North American continent from the Pacific side. It argues that these perceptions were fundamentally different from the European mental discovery of America via the Atlantic. Rather than imagining a ‘new world’, the protagonists saw the north-west American coastline as a part of the North Pacific basin, which, in turn, was considered a part of the Russian empire. Only in the early nineteenth century did Russian geographic and cultural concepts change, becoming more similar to those of Europeans and to contemporary ideas of continents and global structures.