#18 - JRL 7273
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (Alaska)
August 1, 2003
'New Russia' is worth knowing
By JOHN EICHELBERGER
Where is Kamchatka?
Few Alaskans know the answer. But never in Kamchatka have I heard, "Gde Alaska?" Perhaps Russians know more history and geography than we do. Many of us did not grow up in Alaska.
Still, Southwesterners have a sense of New Spain, and northeasterners have a sense of New England. We should have a sense of New Russia.
Of course, the period of estrangement when Russia was the Soviet Union did not help. But we have had two wars with England--they even burned the White House--and one with Spain. We have never had a war with Russia.
Under Peter the Great, Russians began a serious exploration of their Far East. After investigating the Siberian coast, they built the ships St. Peter and St. Paul and sailed eastward from the Kamchatkan city of the same name, Petropavlovsk.
Vitus Bering, Danish sea captain-for-hire, and Alexi Chirikov commanded these ships but soon became separated in a storm. Both found and claimed Alaska in 1741, but Bering wrecked and died on what became Bering Island. Chirikov returned to gain the early laurels of discovery. Bering seems to have won the fame contest in the long run, though surely he loses some points for not making it back alive.
As the British did in Canada, the Russians established a company to extract wealth from their new possession. Baranof was its most famous chief executive officer, extending the Russian reach down the Pacific coast to California and southward to Hawaii from his base in New Archangel, now Sitka.
The Russian population was never large and there was considerable inter-marrying and melding of cultures with Native people, despite the violence and ravaging by disease that the Natives suffered as a result of cultural contact.
During the Crimean War, British and French fleets attacked and burned Petropavlovsk, the Alaska colony's supply point. This threatened Russia's hold on Alaska. Better for Russia to sell out to friendly Americans than to have the awful British at the back door.
Thus the United States acquired Alaska for $7 million, a sale that was unpopular in Russia by reason of loss of territory and in the United States by reason of spending such a fabulous sum on an "ice box."
Some British Columbians still harbor doubts about what we actually bought. Much of this story is told in a delightful little book: "Russian America: The Great Alaskan Adventure 1741-1867" by Hector Chevigny. It's number 440,817 on the Amazon.com hit parade.
If Alaskans are confused about geography, the rest of the country is worse. One federal agency considers Kamchatka to be eastern Europe and the Aleutians to be in the Arctic (Pop quiz: Which is farthest south: Adak, Ketchikan, or London?). No wonder we fail to see Russia as a neighbor.
Why does this matter? Because there is a logic to continuity across the North Pacific. For example, Hokkaido, Petropavlovsk, Dutch Harbor, and Valdez provide a great-circle line of ice-free ports. This fact is lost on us when we flatten the world and tear it down the international date line. Surely, without the misfortunes of the 20th century, there would be much more commerce on this route than there is now and surely that potential remains.
Kamchatka and Alaska have much more in common: savage charms of volcanoes, ice, bears and raging rivers; dependence on the rest of their respective countries for critical supplies; and great distance from their national capitals that tends to diminish the priority of their needs for policy makers.
In some ways analogous to our oil dividend and the salary supplement that federal workers receive to live here, Kamchatkan life was subsidized by the government during the Soviet era.
Kamchatka and Alaska are now linked only by the tenuous thread of a weekly flight of Magadan Air. Without that flight, Petropavlovsk would be literally a world away instead of four hours. But rather than each being at the end of the road, Kamchatka and Alaska could be stops on an international highway.
Things are looking up for the Russian Far East in general. Already, as the News-Miner reported recently, Alaskans are involved in an oil and gas boom on Sakhalin Island.
More contact through educational, business and cultural connections would benefit both Kamchatka and Alaska. We could also ask that it be made as easy to travel to Russia as it is to our other neighbors, Mexico and Canada. After all, the Cold War is over, we have a common heritage, and our presidents are barbecue buddies.
John Eichelberger has lived here in New Russia for 12 years. Before that he lived in New York, New England and New Mexico.
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