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Russian MP Oleg Metveychev has demanded the return of Alaska and Fort Ross to California as compensation for US sanctions. He made the statement in the morning block of Channel One to Vladimir Solovyov.
“Once they impose sanctions, when everything calms down we have to think about compensation. We lose money and we have to take it back. The return of all Russian property – that of the Russian Empire, the USSR and today’s Russia, which was taken over by the United States.” he snapped.
Soloviev asks if he means Alaska and Fort Ross. “That’s right. Like Antarctica. We found it, so it’s ours,” he said.
The Russian Empire had quite a lot of property in the 19th century. The first colony was founded in 1784 in Alaska and is called the “Bay of the Three Saints”. There he started the Russian-American Company, a trading company founded by Tsar Paul I, which launched the invasion of North America.
The Russian tsar created a monopoly on the fur trade with the local population and ordered the expansion of property.
It was the Russian-American company that built Fort Ross, a 3-hour drive from San Francisco in 1812. It was sold to private owners in 1841, when the rather rich marine life diminished and the land became uncultivable.
In 1815 and 1816, the Russian Empire signed a treaty with the Kingdom of Hawaii to open three outposts on the islands. These are Fort Alexander, Fort Elizabeth and Fort Barkley de Tolly. However, the Russians were expelled in 1817, when the locals revolted against them for building forts and raising the Russian flag over them.
Russia’s last territory in North America, Alaska, was sold to the United States in 1867 during Andrew Jackson’s presidency for $ 7.2 million. That equates to 144.4 million today.
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