From the early 1860s Koreans appeared in the Russian Far East. Beginning in 1864, Koreans who received approval of the Russian authorities had begun to establish Korean villages in this region. During the 1860s and 1870s, the Russian government favored the Koreans' immigration into this area in order to develop the inhospitable lands in the Far East. After the 1880s, Russia's contradictory tendencies of accepting the Korean immigrants or prohibiting them coexisted. Nonetheless, Korean immigration continuously increased until the mid 1920s. The number of Korean immigrants reached approximately 200,000 in 1937. During September and November of 1937 all Koreans living in the Far East were deported to Central Asia because of the potential suspicion that they would serve as spies for Japan.