Shanghai is located in the province of Jiangsu in southeastern China. In 1900, after the Beijing Spiritual Mission was ravaged by the Boxers and left Beijing for Tianjin, the superior of the Mission, Archimandrite Innokenty came to Shanghai in October of the same year with two Chinese young men. After a long search, they obtained a plot of land with a two-story brick house; soon another two-story building was constructed for a school and in March 1901, the school itself was opened. In the summer of that year the superior of the mission was summoned to St Petersburg on Mission business and returned already in the rank of bishop. In the autumn of 1902, he visited Shanghai. In 1903 the number of students had increased to 24. Several of them had already earlier received baptism. At that time a three-story building was constructed and the foundations of a church in honor of the Transfiguration were laid; the dependency was directed by hieromonk Simon. In 1904 his assistant was a retired Serbian officer, Z. G. Popov. In 1905 on February 2, the church was consecrated by his Grace Innokenty who spent all of great lent in Shanghai, holding services for the Russians who were returning from Port Arthur in droves. Hieromonk Simon was sent to Hankou to take care of church affairs. In 1908, the priest, Fr Pavel Figurovsky, arrived to take charge of the dependency in Shanghai and in the following year 56 people were baptized. Up until 1910 the school produced several students who are now working as missionaries. Since 1910, missionary activity has begun in neighboring districts, in Haimen and several cities of the province of Zhejiang. Fr Paul Figurovsky visited several cities where many baptisms were performed and where many more were enrolled for instruction. This was the case in the cities of Hangzhou, Ningbo and Taizhou. There were 40 students in the mission school where Alexander Chen served as teacher. In 1911 the activities of the mission flourished: 570 people were baptized but the revolutionary discord which was just then beginning, put and end to the work for two years."