Farewell to Alaska: Russia bitterly regrets this decision to this day. Kim Jong-un of North Korea no longer wants unification with South Korea

To the west! Vladimir Putin wants to use all his power to expand Russia in this direction: Russian troops are currently supposed to subdue Ukraine. But Kremlin mouthpieces have also uncovered a piece of land in eastern Moscow that was once “Russian territory.” A large piece of land, a rich piece of land that has been part of the US for over 150 years: Alaska.

“Alaska is ours!”, despite the reality, was the message on posters in the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk in 2022, as the American magazine “Newsweek” reported. This demand was fueled by Vyacheslav Volodin, Putin’s confidant and chairman of the State Duma. In view of the Western economic war against Russia, returning Alaska to the Russian Empire would only be right and appropriate, according to Volodin’s argument.

“Very provocative”

But the “collection of Russian soil” was far from over. According to the Daily Mail, Kremlin adviser Oleg Matveychev last summer demanded the return not only of Alaska, but also of Fort Ross in California, located north of San Francisco. Why? Because there was once a Russian settlement there. Putin’s confidante Sergei Mironov recently further targeted the US in mind games on portal X (formerly Twitter). For example, the state of Texas once belonged to Mexico.

Words are words, but an event from the summer of 2023 caused palpable alarm in Washington, DC. Warships from Russia and China went on ‘patrol’ together near Alaska. According to Spiegel, an expert assessed the action as “very provocative”. Because to the extent that Russia and the United States seem geographically distant from a European perspective, they are not.

Only 53 miles separate Russia and Alaska in the form of the Bering Strait, a proximity that also makes U.S. forces uneasy. For some time now, they have wanted to demonstrate to Russia through an increased military presence in Alaska that the United States is also monitoring Moscow’s activities in this region, which once belonged to the tsars.

But how did Alaska and Fort Ross come into Russian possession in the first place? In a sense, this goes back to a Dane: Vitus Bering – also known as ‘Columbus the Tsar’ – led the so-called Great Northern Expedition between 1733 and 1743. She succeeded in the ‘second discovery’ of America, this time in the Pacific Ocean instead of the Atlantic Ocean, across which Christopher Columbus had once sailed west.

“Without food”

The actual Alaskans, whose ancestors were once the true explorers of America, were anything but welcome to the newcomers from across the Bering Strait. The Russian trappers took hostages from the inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands to blackmail fur, historian Henner Kropp reports in his book “Russia’s Dream of America”, which is definitely worth reading. The Colonists of Alaska, Russia and the USA, 1733–1867. This brutal approach seemed easier to them than going hunting themselves.

Maximizing profits was the order of the day; the Russian-American Company (RAK), founded in 1799, was supposed to ensure the exploitation of the country. Russia’s entry into Alaska appeared to have been successful. “By the turn of the century, there were more than a dozen Russian settlements in Russian America,” writes historian Kropp.

But a closer look reveals something very different: “On average, there were about 500 people from Russia in Alaska between 1780 and 1867.” This means that there were never more than a few hundred of the Tsar’s subjects in this vast area. And it was anything but good for them.

Life was hard, dangerous and full of hardships; famine was rampant in Russian America around 1805. “I found here 200 Russians and more than 300 Aleuts without food or supplies,” Nikolai Rezanov, who came from Russia, noted of conditions in the city of Sitka. The solution to the problem should lie in the South, a place still considered the embodiment of the American dream: California.

Land for sale

In 1812 – the year Napoleon Bonaparte led his Grande Armée to Moscow – Russia built Fort Ross on the far coast of the Pacific Ocean. Viewed with suspicion by the Spaniards, who essentially considered the entire room theirs. The RAK hoped to get fur and food from there. But the fur-bearing animals there were soon killed and the natives who did the field work for the Russians were angry. In short, by 1840 the RAK had finally lost all interest in Fort Ross; Alaska could not receive sufficient supplies from there. The Swiss Johann August Sutter subsequently acquired the settlement in California.

Russia did not separate from Alaska until decades later. The cause was an event that happened very far away. In 1856 the British and French inflicted a disastrous defeat on the Tsarist Empire in the Crimean War, the shame was deep – and actually led to reforms in reactionary Russia. The newly crowned Tsar Alexander II later freed the serf farmers and ceded Alaska.

A decision that was probably not that difficult for the ruler of Russia. “People in St. Petersburg have never really warmed up to the distant and inhospitable Alaska,” says Henner Kropp. But who should get the Russian country past the Bering Strait? There was no question of Britain; after all, the island kingdom had not only brought shame to Russia in Crimea. No, Britain would have placed Russia and its Canadian possessions in the east with the takeover of Alaska.

Unlike the Cold War of the twentieth century—and today, given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—Russia’s relationship with the United States was much better. US Secretary of State William H. Seward was impressed by the idea of ​​acquiring the vast land in the north of the continent. Alaska changed hands in 1867 for $7.2 million.

Greetings from Moscow

Even if Vladimir Putin and his entourage didn’t like it, it was a valid deal. However, no one asked what the residents wanted. While William H. Seward faced much ridicule at the time for the purchase (“Seward’s Freezer”), today Czar Alexander II is considered a fool for the sale. Ultimately, a Russian America today would dramatically change the geopolitical situation in Russia’s favor. Not to mention the oil wealth of the 49th US state.

Henner Kropp defends the Russian decision of 1867: “From a contemporary perspective, the Alaska Purchase can be explained quite rationally.” A Russian return to Alaska à la Volodin, Matveychev and Mironov is also quite unlikely. Mike Dunleavy, the governor of Alaska, wrote on X: “To the Russian politicians who think they can take back Alaska: good luck!”