At a meeting of student protesters on 9 February 1902 Tsereteli was arrested; considered one of the most radical leaders, he was one of two students given a sentence of five years' exile in Siberia, the longest sentence given to the protesting students. Though the government quickly backtracked and offered him the chance to serve it in Georgia, Tsereteli refused, seeing it as a pardon and considering "its acceptance as being in conflict with views", as he explained in a letter. This refusal, which was publicised with other exiles, cited social democracy as advocated by the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), and effectively confirmed Tsereteli's support for the ideology by this point. After declining the offer to return to Georgia, Tsereteli arrived in the village of Tulun in early 1902, located about from Irkutsk, Siberia's administrative centre. However, by late summer he was permitted to move to Irkutsk. It was during this exile that Tsereteli became familiar with the Russian Social Democrats, particularly Marxism; Tsereteli read Vladimir Lenin's "What Is To Be Done?", though he disliked the view Lenin espoused (the RSDLP would split into two main factions in 1903 over factional differences).