Alaska | Chilling past, warm present

On August 15, U.S President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin concluded a historic summit in Alaska. After friendly greetings and two-and-a-half-hour-long talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, they left without announcing any deal, but claimed to have made progress on many issues.

The selection of Alaska as the backdrop for this summit, the first since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was significant in more than one manner. Alaska was under Russian control for 125 years before being sold to the U.S. in 1867. Alaska is separated from Russia by a distance of 88 km, while the Russian Island of Big Diomede is located just 4 km from the U.S. Little Diomede Island, with the Bering strait separating the two.

Also read: Trump-Putin Alaska Summit Highlights

Alaska has been populated by Indigenous peoples, including the Athabaskans, Unangan (Aleuts), Inuit, Yupiit (Yupik), Tlingit, and Haida, for centuries. In the early 18th century, Danish explorer Vitus Bering was pressed into service by Russian Tsar Peter the Great to explore the regions to the east of Russia’s border. In 1728, Bering sailed through the strait separating the Russian mainland and North America (the strait is now named after him). During his second voyage in 1741, Bering spotted the peak of Mount St. Elias, part of an Alaskan mountain range, from his ship St. Peter. His “discovery” of Alaska was confirmed later during the voyage of Englishman Captain James Cook, who mapped the area in 1778.

Trading outposts

Russian traders — the Promyshlenniki — soon set up outposts in Alaska, interested in seal-hunting and otter fur trade. The first Russian colony was set up in 1784 on Kodiak island at Three Saints Bay. In 1799, Tsar Paul I established the Russian American company, and in 1806, their capital was moved from Kodiak to Sitka.

The Russians had to contend with opposition from the Alaskan natives, including an armed battle in Sitka in 1804 between Tlingit and Russian forces. British and later American trade interest in the region was also a challenge to the growth of ‘Russian America’. Over decades, overexploitation of seals and sea otters in Alaska meant that their populations shrank, gutting profitability for Russian traders. Further, Russia was defeated by the British in the Crimean war (1853-1856). Viewing Alaska as a hard-to-defend territory which was also becoming economically untenable, Tsar Alexander II decided to give it up.

Despite British interest, the U.S. emerged triumphant in its bid for Alaska in 1867. Russia sold the parcel of land, measured 665,000 sq. miles, to the U.S for $7.2 million, in a deal brokered by U.S. Secretary of State William Henry Seward. The deal, dubbed as ‘Seward’s Folly’, was widely criticised, since Alaska was viewed as a barren frozen wasteland. The subsequent discovery of natural gas reserves and rare earth minerals, however, changed the public perception. In 1896, gold was found in Yukon and prospectors arrived to seek their fortunes in the Klondike gold fields. In 1959, Alaska officially became the 49th State of the U.S.

Traces of its Russian past persist in Alaska till day. Several Orthodox churches, with characteristic ornate decor and onion-shaped domes, dot the region. The Orthodox diocese in Alaska is reportedly the oldest in North America, and it maintains a seminary on Kodiak island, the site of the first Russian settlement. Local dialects, now fast-vanishing, arose from a melange of Russian and local indigenous language, and persisted in regions surrounding Anchorage. Russian, too, is taught in some areas, such as the Kenai peninsula.

Alaska is also a strategically important region. Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, the site of Friday’s summit, was a forward front of American defence during the Cold War.

Given the region’s imperial Russian past, it was hardly a surprise that Anchorage was picked as the venue for the Putin-Trump meet — an American town acceptable for the Russians. When Mr. Putin met Mr. Trump on the tarmac of the joint base, he greeted him, saying, ‘Good afternoon, dear neighbour.”