Posted on 10/04/2009 2:02:19 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Few parts of America have been as badly hit by the global economic crisis as California, where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been forced to slash state budgets to compensate for a $24-billion shortfall.
Among the items on the chopping block were 100 California state parks -- including Fort Ross, a 19th-century settlement on the Pacific coast just north of San Francisco that was established by a group of hunters and traders from Russia.
The fort, whose name is derived from "Rossiya," was ultimately spared closure, when California announced on September 25 it would keep the parks open. But the weeks before the decision saw a flurry of diplomatic activity, with Russian officials lobbying for Fort Ross not to be closed.
Medvedev's Backing
Speaking on the sidelines of last week's UN General Assembly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for Fort Ross to be preserved as a reminder that the United States and Russia enjoyed warm relations long before the start of the Cold War.
"I would like to ask our business community to help save this unique monument to the Russian participation in the development of America and the symbol of the long-standing Russian-American relations," Lavrov said. "I can assure you that the Russian government is prepared to support this endeavor, and President [Dmitry] Medvedev, to whom I talked about this issue, supported it strongly."
Fort Ross was founded in 1812 and functioned for 30 years as Russia's southernmost settlement on American soil, supplying food and otter-fur pelts to Russian colonists in Alaska.
The grounds, which have been designated a U.S. national historic landmark, feature traditional wooden-beam houses and a Russian Orthodox Church modeled on those built by the fort's settlers.
Only one original building -- a wooden home belonging to the fort's last manager, Aleksandr Rotchev -- remains on the premises.
Here Come The Russians
The site is a source of fascination for many Russians. Lyn Kalani, who heads the Fort Ross Interpretive Association, a nonprofit organization working to preserve the park, says the grounds have been visited frequently by the Russian media since the threatened closure was announced.
"We are working with Russian institutions on several projects," Kalani said. "One is the research project with the Russian State Naval Archive. The other one is making a house museum in the Russian-built Rotchev House, which is the only original structure remaining from the Russian times here."
Although Fort Ross has been spared closure, it is facing severe budget cuts. The park's annual revenues come to $200,000 -- just one-fifth of its $1-million operating budget.
With the state no longer able to support the park, Fort Ross supporters are looking for funding elsewhere -- including Russia.
The drive to save the park may be a rare instance where Russian intervention in U.S. domestic affairs may actually be welcome.
Jeff Macedo, the deputy press secretary for Schwarzenegger, said California law does not prohibit state parks from looking abroad for private or state funding.
Macedo said the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergei Kislyak, and Vladimir Vinokurov, the Russian consul general from San Francisco, have both taken an active interest in the fate of Fort Ross:
"The Russian ambassador came out to discuss with our parks department the importance of Fort Ross to the Russian people and the history behind it," he said. "And then the governor and the ambassador also exchanged letters regarding the importance of the park."
Following a visit to Fort Ross in late August, Kisylak stopped short of saying whether Russia would commit state funds to help save the park. He expressed confidence, however, that benefactors could be found to help maintain California's first Russian settlement.
The colonists erected several buildings and a Russian Orthodox church inside a stockade. A village sprang up around the site, mixing the Russians with the native Alaskans they brought with them to hunt sea otters and the local Kashaya Indians, who worked as day laborers.
Within a few years, Russian settlers turned their focus to agriculture after the sea otter catch began to decline. They planted a vineyard, an orchard and a garden, but the land proved to be too difficult for sustained agriculture and the coastal fog produced poor wheat harvests. Gophers remained a constant pest.
The last of the Russian colonists abandoned the fort in 1842.
Former capitalists turning to former communists to help....how fitting.
Schwarzenegger has been my most bitter vote. This guy has had to try his damdest to be the worst governor in perhaps this nation’s history.
He’s a policy pussy. He’s a man with no backbone. He was raised in the Eastern Block, yet leaned absolutely nothing from the experience, if not to look for his former masters to rescue his bacon.
What a disgusting shameful demoralizing performance Arnold.
I am ashamed of you.
There were Americans there from the earliest time who served as intermediaries between the Orthodox Russians and the Roman Catholic Spanish ~ by being neither the Americans were able to purchase vegetables from the Spanish in trade for furs provided by the Russians. The vegetables were shipped to Alaska to feed the Russian fur traders in the area who were otherwise not able to subsist on products of the sea alone.
The Russian furs seem to have provided the Spanish mission personnel with sufficient income to import fine silk gowns (priestly garments) from China and possibly Japan (most likely through intermediaries in the Philippines, then ruled by Spain). You can, in fact, see the remains of some of these things in museum exhibits at the missions.
The American fur traders included closely related men named Finley, Brooks and Ramsey from Indiana and Ohio. Some of them returned home (quite possibly with a bit of gold in their pockets ~ paid by the Spaniards to the Americans for the furs, but otherwise derived from Mexican sources in Baja.)
I believe some of the Russians, most likely the Finns and Danes in their company, went with the American fur traders to Indiana ~ which explains why you find Greek crosses in pioneer graveyards in Southern Indiana. Otherwise there were no Russian or Greek immigrants in that area until the 1900s.
The Russians had gotten involved when their acquisitions in Siberia proved to be "short" on furs.
This was due to the vast droughts and famines that had pretty much driven all the people to the coastal regions, or even offshore to Hokkaido Island. (Remember the great droughts and famines that hit Europe in the late 1700s and 1800s ~ these were just as bad, but particularly devastating in Siberia).
Not only were there no people the Russians discovered there were few fur bearing animals in the region. They discovered (recall Vitus Bering) what they wanted in Alaska which being a smaller peninsula was wetter than the Asian mainland and had survived the disaster.
Many of the earliest "Russian" fur traders were actually Danes, Swedes and Finns. Part of the deal for working for the Czar on these frighteningly long trips all the way to America was to sign on with the Russian Orthodox church.
It was inevitable that they would meet people of similar origin coming from the other direction ~ and that occurred at Fort Ross.
In the end some of the men who set out from Nikel Oblast walked almost all the way around the world!
I think their efforts are worth recalling ~ and there's nothing wrong with cutting the Russians in on it. This is also their history.
The church was destroyed by arson in the ‘70’s. Local Indian tribe probably did it because the museum was ransacked of Indian relics but no one was ever charged. Oceanic Properties, the developer of The Sea Ranch, rebuilt the church. There have been several unsuccessful arson attempts on the new church.
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