7 little-known facts about the history of the sale of Russian Alaska

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

On January 3, 1959, Alaska became the 49th US state, although these lands were sold to America by Russia in 1867. However, there is a version that Alaska was never sold. Russia leased it for 90 years, and after the lease expired, in 1957, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev actually donated these lands to the United States. Many historians argue that the agreement on the transfer of Alaska to the United States was not signed by either the Russian Empire or the USSR, and the peninsula was borrowed from Russia free of charge. Whatever it was, Alaska is still covered with an aura of secrets.

Russians taught the natives of Alaska to turnips and potatoes

During the reign of the "quietest" Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov in Russia, Semyon Dezhnev swam across the 86-kilometer strait separating Russia and America. Later, this strait was named Bering in honor of Vitus Bering, who explored the coast of Alaska in 1741. Although before him, in 1732, Mikhail Gvozdev was the first of the Europeans to determine the coordinates and mapped the 300-kilometer coastline of this peninsula. In 1784, Grigory Shelikhov was engaged in the development of Alaska, who taught the local population to turnips and potatoes, spread Orthodoxy among the natives-horsemen and even founded an agricultural colony "Glory to Russia". Since that time, the inhabitants of Alaska have become Russian subjects.

The British and Americans armed the natives against the Russians

In 1798, as a result of the merger of the companies of Grigory Shelikhov, Nikolai Mylnikov and Ivan Golikov, the Russian-American Company was formed, whose shareholders were statesmen and grand dukes. The first director of this company is Nikolay Rezanov, whose name is known today to many as the name of the hero of the musical "Juno and Avos". The company, which some historians today call "the destroyer of Russian America and an obstacle to the development of the Far East", had monopoly rights to furs, trade, the discovery of new lands, granted Emperor Paul I … The company also had the right to protect and represent the interests of Russia.

The company founded the Mikhailovskaya Fortress (today Sitka), where the Russians built a church, an elementary school, a shipyard, workshops and an arsenal. Every ship that came to the harbor where the fortress stood was greeted with a salute. In 1802, the fortress was burned down by the natives, and three years later another Russian cap suffered the same fate. American and British entrepreneurs sought to liquidate the Russian settlements and for this they armed the natives.

Alaska could become a cause of war for Russia

For Russia, Alaska was a real gold mine. For example, the fur of the sea otter cost more than gold, but the greed and shortsightedness of the hunters led to the fact that already in the 1840s there were practically no valuable animals left on the peninsula. In addition, oil and gold were discovered in Alaska. It is this fact, no matter how absurd it sounds, that became one of the incentives to get rid of Alaska as soon as possible. The fact is that American prospectors began to actively arrive in Alaska, and the Russian government reasonably feared that American troops would come after them. Russia was not ready for war, and it was completely imprudent to give Alaska penniless.

At the ceremony for the transfer of Alaska, the flag fell on Russian bayonets

October 18, 1867 at 15.30. the solemn ceremony of changing the flag on the flagpole in front of the house of the ruler of Alaska began. Two non-commissioned officers began to lower the flag of the Russian-American Company, but it got tangled by the ropes at the very top, and the falin broke off altogether. Several sailors, on orders, rushed upstairs to unravel the flag that was torn into tatters hanging from the mast. The sailor, who got to the flag first, did not have time to shout to get down with the flag, and not throw it down, and he threw the flag down. The flag hit the Russian bayonets. Mystics and conspiracy theorists should have rejoiced.

Immediately after the transfer of Alaska to the United States, American troops entered Sitka and plundered the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, private houses and shops, and General Jefferson Davis ordered all Russians to leave their homes to the Americans.

Alaska has become an extremely profitable deal for the United States

The Russian Empire sold the uninhabited and inaccessible territory to the United States at $ 0.05 per hectare. It turned out to be 1.5 times cheaper than the developed territory of historic Louisiana was sold by Napoleonic France 50 years earlier. America offered only $ 10 million for the port of New Orleans, and besides, the lands of Louisiana had to be redeemed from the Indians living there.

Another fact: at the time when Russia sold Alaska to America, the state treasury paid more for a single three-story building in the center of New York than the American government for the entire peninsula.

The main secret of selling Alaska - where is the money?

Eduard Steckl, who had been Chargé d'Affaires of the Russian Embassy in Washington since 1850, and was appointed Ambassador in 1854, received a check for 7 million 35 thousand dollars. He kept 21 thousand for himself, and gave 144 thousand to the senators who voted for the ratification of the treaty as bribes. 7 million were transferred to London by bank transfer, and from the British capital to St. Petersburg, the gold bars bought for this amount were transported by sea.

When converting currency, first into pounds, and then into gold, they lost another 1.5 million. But this loss was not the last. On July 16, 1868, the Orkney barque, carrying the precious cargo, sank on its way to St. Petersburg. Whether at that moment there was Russian gold on it, or it did not leave the borders of Foggy Albion, remains unknown today. The company that registered the cargo declared itself bankrupt, so the damage was only partially compensated.

In 2013, a Russian filed a lawsuit to invalidate the agreement on the sale of Alaska

In March 2013, a lawsuit was filed with the Moscow Arbitration Court from representatives of the Interregional Public Movement in support of the "Pchelka" Orthodox educational and social initiatives in the name of the Holy Great Martyr Nikita. According to Nikolai Bondarenko, the chairman of the movement, this step was caused by the failure to fulfill a number of clauses of the agreement signed in 1867. In particular, Article 6 provided for the payment of 7 million 200 thousand dollars in gold coins, and the US Treasury wrote a check for this amount, the further fate of which is uncertain. Another reason, according to Bondarenko, was the fact that the US government violated Article 3 of the treaty, which stipulates that the American authorities must provide residents of Alaska, first of all citizens of the Russian Empire, with living according to their customs and traditions and the faith they professed at that time. The Obama administration, with its plans to legalize same-sex marriage, infringes on the rights and interests of citizens who live in Alaska. The Moscow Arbitration Court refused to consider the claim against the US federal government.