In the late 1990 the member of the Presidium of the USSR Aikido Federation Vladimir Tagirov was charged with the commission of the President of this federation Sergey Kiselev to hand over his letter to Kitaura sensei and went to Madrid where he met the master. The letter contained the invitation to visit the city of Leningrad and confirmation that Vladimir Tagirov was the official representative of the USSR Aikido Federation empowered to carry on negotiations in case the master agreed to come to Leningrad, to specify the date and other details of the visit.

The seminar of Kitaura sensei in Madrid in which Vladimir Tagirov took part was the traditional final event of the year attended by representatives of all aikido clubs of Spain and visited by sensei students from other countries. After the seminar was ended, taking advantage of invitation of Kitaura sensei, V. Tagirov during 2 weeks attended training sessions in the master’s Ametsuchi Dojo. Brilliant techniques of the master, his methodical ways, life philosophy and his personality in general produced such a profound impression that V. Tagirov asked the sensei to be his teacher. When the consent was given, V. Tagirov acting as an official representative of the Aikido Federation of the USSR invited the sensei to visit Leningrad and conduct an aikido seminar. Thus, after six month of preparatory works, in June of 1991, for the first time in the USSR, in Leningrad was held the international aikido seminar under guidance of the Aikikai shihan Yasunari Kitaura. At the seminar were present representatives of all organizations included into the USSR Aikido Federation. The great halls of the Leningrad Aikido clubs Lenkai and Aikikai were too small to accommodate all people willing to attend, and because of this each day, during six days, were carried on two training sessions, one for Leningrad residents, the other – for guests of the city.

The atmosphere, festive and joyous, was uniting all the participants of that seminar; friendly ties that had been formed in those days, were still uniting the people till now.

In the period from 1991 to 2009, in Saint-Petersburg were held 14 representative international aikido seminars under guidance of the master Kitaura. At present, the permanent working contacts with shihan Yasunari Kitaura are maintained by the Saint Petersburg Aikido clubs Daidokan (headed by Vladimir Tagirov, Vice-President of the International Euro-Asian Aikido Federation), Tenchi (headed by Zaurbek Gadzhiyev, member of the Presidium of the St Petersburg Aikido Federation) and connected with them Russian Aikido clubs of Moscow, Tver, Kaliningrad, Vorkuta, Syktyvkar, Ukhta, Nizhnevartovsk and Perm. The collective members of IEAAF – the club Aikidom in Minsk, Association of Aikido and Kobudo in Ukraine (consisting of 7 Aikido clubs in 6 cities) – are included into the attestation and methodology system of the master Kitaura, through the mediation of the IEAAF Vice-President V.T. Tagirov. Shihan Kitaura is carrying out the permanent work with instructors of the Aikido Federation of Uzbekistan that is one of founders of the IEAAF (head of the Aikido Federation of Uzbekistan is Rashid Khalidov, IEAAF Vice-President).

Thanks to great efforts of Yasunari Kitaura sensei, tens of Aikido amateurs from Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Uzbekistan, Latvia became holders of the black belts – full members of the Aikikai international organization The high exactingness of the master in relation to the level of examinees is in direct consequence to his striving to maintain the high prestige of aikido, the system that, in his opinion, must be recognized as an objective value of the modern society.

Shihan Yasunari Kitaura – as the creator of an unique methodology of the «comparative iconography», the author of the best book about the Chinese art in Spanish, the recognized expert specializing in the medieval European art – cannot but appreciate the beauty and the unique atmosphere of the northern capital of Russia. Saint Petersburg became the center on the territory of the former Soviet Union where seminars of that great master are held regularly.