His older brother, Sava, worked for a company he knew after graduating from college but left after a year and a half; in October 2019, Sava invited his younger brother, Yan, to join him on YouTube and become a YouTuber. He began posting videos in February 2020, and markets his character as "a foreigner who is highly educated and fluent in Japanese. His main channels are "SAWAYAN CHANNEL," a live-action channel, and "SAWAYAN GAMES," a video game channel. In February 2022 Russian troops invaded their native Ukraine. In response, Sawa and Jan uploaded a video saying they would volunteer to be volunteer soldiers. On 5 March Sawa conducted a live distribution on the "SAWAYAN GAMES" channel where all the money thrown was donated to Ukraine. This distribution raised 3.59 million yen ($25523) in throw-away money and ranked first in the world in
Super chat's daily rankings. In a conversation with Mr. Kono, he also mentioned this distribution and stated that he would like to continue these kinds of activities in the future. On 8 March 2022 he released a video of a conversation with politician
Taro Kono, in which he referred to
Russian invasion of Ukraine. On 31 March 2022 he held a press conference at the
Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in
Marunouchi, Tokyo, where he shared his thoughts with his family in his home country, which is under military invasion by Russia. On 13 February 2023 he traveled to the United States to watch the All-Stars at the invitation of the
NBA. However, at the immigration checkpoint at
Los Angeles International Airport, Sava had his passport returned without incident, but Yan was taken to a separate room. After a couple of days, Yan was effectively banned from entering the U.S. as he was to return to Japan. On 16 May 2023 SAWAYAN collaborated for the first time with Japanese YouTuber
Hikakin. After eating "Misokin" cup noodles produced by Hikakin together at Hikakin's home, the two made a surprise appearance at the APF GOUKETSU, a
Bodybuilder's competition, and served Misokin to the competitors after the competition. == Member ==