Sale of Alaska (7 photos)

January 3, 1959 Alaska became the 49th state of the USA, while Russia sold the land America were still in 1867. However, there is a version that Alaska has never been sold. Russia has handed over its rent for 90 years, and at the end of the lease term, in 1957, Nikita Khrushchev actually gave the land the United States. Many historians argue that the agreement on the transfer of Alaska to the United States did not sign either the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, and the peninsula free of borrowed from Russian. As if it was not, Alaska today fanned aura of mystery.




Flag of Russian Alaska Russian Alaska natives accustomed to the turnips and potatoes



Blessing Aleuts on the fishery. Painter Vladimir Latyntsev.

During the reign of Russia's "quietest" Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov Dezhnev sailed through separating Russia and America 86-kilometer strait. Later it was called the Bering Strait after Vitus Bering, who in 1741 explored the coast of Alaska. Although up to him, in 1732, Mikhail Gvozdev first European to determine the coordinates and mapped the 300-kilometer coastline of the peninsula. In 1784, he engaged in the development of Alaska Gregory Shelikhov, who taught local people to turnips and potatoes, distributed among the natives-Konyaga Orthodoxy and even founded an agricultural colony "Glory to Russia". Since that time, Alaskans became Russian subjects.

The British and Americans were arming the natives against the Russian
In 1798, the merger of Gregory Shelikhov, Nikolay Mylnikova and Ivan Golikova formed the Russian-American Company, whose shareholders have become statesmen and grand dukes. The first director of the company - Nikolai Rezanov, whose name is known today as the name of a hero to many of the musical "Juno and Avos". The company, which some historians now call "the destroyer of Russian America and the obstacle in the development of the Far East" were monopoly rights for furs, trade and the opening of new lands granted to Emperor Paul I. The company had the right to protect and represent the interests of Russia



Sitka today.

The company was founded St. Michael's fortress (now Sitka), where Russian built a church, a primary school yard, workshop and arsenal. Every ship that came into the harbor, where there was a castle, met with fireworks. In 1802 the castle was burned by the natives, and three years later the same fate befell another Russian kepost. American and British entrepreneurs have sought to eliminate the Russian settlement, and for that arming the natives.

Alaska could be the cause of the war for Russia



Russian America in 1860.

For Russia, Alaska was a real gold mine. For example, the fur of the sea otter was worth more than gold, but the greed and shortsightedness miners led to the fact that in the 1840s the securities animals on the peninsula is almost gone. Also it was found in Alaska crude oil and gold. It is this fact, it is not absurd it sounds, has become one of the incentives to get rid of Alaska. The fact is that in Alaska began actively to arrive American prospectors, and the Russian government is rightly feared that come after them American troops. By the war Russia was not ready to give Alaska and penniless, was very imprudent.

The ceremony for the transfer of Alaska flag fell on Russian bayonets



Picture N.Leyttse "Signing the agreement on sale of Alaska" (1867)

October 18, 1867 at 15.30. It began a solemn ceremony of replacing the flag on the flagpole in front of the house of the governor of Alaska. Two non-commissioned officer started down the flag of the Russian-American company, but he stumbled over the rope at the top, and the painter from within and completely broke. Several men on the orders rushed to climb upstairs to unravel hanging on the mast of a flag torn to pieces. Sailors who reached the flag first, did not have time to scream, so he climbed down along with the flag, and did not throw him, and he threw the flag down. The flag was right on the Russian bayonets. Mystics and conspiracy theorists would have to rejoice.
Immediately after the transfer of Alaska to Sitka United States entered the American troops, who looted the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, homes and shops, and Gen. Jefferson Davis ordered all Russian Americans to leave their homes.

Alaska became a US extremely bargain
Russian Empire sold US uninhabited and remote areas to 0, 05 USD per hectare. It was in the 1, 5 times cheaper than the Napoleonic France in the 50 years before that was sold to the historical development of the territory of Louisiana. America offered only for the port of New Orleans $ 10 million. And besides, the land of Louisiana had to buy again at Indians living there.



The building of the New York District Court was worth more than the whole of Alaska.

Another fact: at the time when Russia was sold to America, Alaska, for the one and only three-story building in the heart of New York State Treasury shelled out more than the US government over the entire peninsula.

Home secret sale of Alaska - where is the money?
Eduard Stoeckl, who since 1850 has been Charge d'Affaires of the Russian Embassy in Washington, and in 1854 was appointed envoy, received a check in the amount of 7 million 35 thousand. Dollars. 21 thousand. He left himself 144 thousand. Gave the senators who voted for ratification of the treaty, as bribes. 7 million. Was transferred to London by bank transfer, and already from the British capital to St. Petersburg drove purchased for this amount of gold bullion by sea.



A check for the purchase of Alaska. Issued in the name of Eduard Stoeckl Andeevicha.

When converting currencies into pounds at first, and then into gold lost another 1.5 million. But this loss was not the last. July 16, 1868 barque "Orkney", carrying the precious cargo on the way to St. Petersburg sank. Was there a time in the Russian gold there, or it limits Albion never left, remains unknown today. The company, which has registered the goods declared itself bankrupt, so the damage is only partially reimbursed.

In 2013, the Russians filed a claim for recognition of the sales contract invalid Alaska
In March 2013 the Moscow Arbitration Court received a claim from the representatives of the Inter-regional social movement in support of the Orthodox educational and social initiatives "Bees" in the name of the Holy Great Martyr Nikita. According to Nikolai Bondarenko, chairman of the movement, such a move was caused by the failure of a number of points of the contract, signed in 1867. In particular, Article 6 provides for payment of 7.2 million dollars in gold coin, and the US Treasury to write a check for that amount, the fate of which is obscure. Another basis, according to Bondarenko, was the violation of Article 3 of the United States government contract, which stipulates that US authorities should provide the residents of Alaska, before the citizens of the Russian empire, living according to their customs and traditions and the faith that they professed at that time. The Obama administration, with its plans to legalize same-sex marriages violate the rights and interests of citizens who live in Alaska. Moscow Arbitration Court to consider a lawsuit against the US federal government has refused.