At the end of the 17th century, the Moscow Kremlin knew little about what was happening beyond the Urals - in the vast expanses of Siberia and the Far East. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was worried by rumors reaching him about the unfriendliness and power of the multimillion-dollar Chinese state, and at the behest of the tsar, a knowledgeable person was found for the Ambassadorial order - the Moldavian Greek Milescu Nicolae Spetarul (later Nikolai Gavrilovich Spafarii). In 1675, the Spafarievo embassy was sent to China, whose mission included the intelligence component.