ПРОДАЖА АЛЯСКИ: как Россия Продала Америку За Бесценок и Почему Считала Это Удачей

Two years before the deal, the Russian-American Company had drawn up its balance sheet, and it was hopeless: the colony wasn't profitable, the treasury was paying extra for its existence, and the main commodity for which it all had been started had physically run out. The sea otters were almost completely wiped out—a hundred years of hunting had reduced the animals to a few hundred individuals. By 1967, the question in St. Petersburg wasn't whether to sell Alaska, but whether Russia would have time to sell it before losing it for nothing. The history of Russian America began a hundred years earlier, with the voyages of sea otter, and was built on people who are barely remembered today. The merchant Grigory Shelikhov founded the first permanent settlement on Kodiak. Alexander Baranov, a merchant from Kargopol who arrived for five years and stayed for twenty-eight, built Novo-Arkhangelsk, fought the Tlingit Indians, traded with Canton and California, and ruled a territory half the size of Europe, with several hundred Russians at his disposal. It was under his rule that Russian America became what it was later remembered as. The film explores how the sea otter trade brought the Russians across the Pacific; what the Russian-American Company really was and why it was structured as a trading monopoly with state powers; how the industrialists lived and what happened to the Aleuts, who were forced to hunt the animals; why the Tlingit twice sacked Russian forts and why the war with them was never won; why Fort Ross was built in California and why it was sold even before Alaska; how the Crimean War demonstrated that the colony was indefensible; Who was the real initiator of the sale and why the decision was made secretly, at a meeting of six. Separately, about everyday life: what they ate in the colony, where they brought their bread from, what scurvy was like during the winter, and why the main problem in Russian America was always food, not the Indians. We debunk persistent myths: that Alaska wasn't sold, but leased for ninety-nine years; that the money sank with the ship and Russia received nothing; that Catherine the Great had something to do with it; that the Americans knew about the gold from the start; and that the deal was a mistake they immediately regretted. And about the consequences: how Alaska gave the United States access to the Arctic and the Pacific Ocean, what was found there thirty years later, how much the seven million two hundred thousand dollars sold is valued today, and what remains of the Russian presence—Orthodox parishes, Cyrillic inscriptions on tombstones, and Aleutian surnames. Sources used for preparing this material: Bolkhovitinov, N. N., Russian-American Relations and the Sale of Alaska. 1834–1867. Moscow: Nauka, 1990. History of Russian America. 1732–1867. In three volumes / edited by N. N. Bolkhovitinov. Moscow, 1997–1999. Tikhmenev, P. A., Historical Review of the Formation of the Russian-American Company. St. Petersburg, 1861–1863. Khlebnikov, K. T., Biography of Alexander Andreevich Baranov. Okun, S. B., Russian-American Company. Moscow; Leningrad, 1939. Grinev, A. V., Tlingit Indians during the Russian America Period. Petrov, A. Yu., "Russian-American Company: Activities in Domestic and International Markets." Dates are given in Old Style unless otherwise noted.