The history of the development of America by Russians focused on at the Presidential Library’s webinar

May 15, 2019 the Presidential Library hosted a thematic webinar "Russian America (marking the 220th anniversary of the founding of the Russian-American Company)". The event was devoted to the history of outstanding sea expeditions undertaken under the auspices of the Russian-American Company of the most important geographical and ethnographic discoveries that were made by Russian navigators, and the possessions of our country on the Pacific coast.

The webinar was attended by members of the Presidential Library’s User Services Department, an expert from the Russian State Archive of the Navy, and centers of remote access to the resources of the Presidential Library in Russia and abroad. Employees and readers of the Chelyabinsk Regional Research Library, as well as students and teachers of the Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, connected the event via video-conferencing mode.  

Specialists of the Presidential Library focused on the vast digital collections of the Presidential Library, which today number more than 770,000 units of storage. It contains copies of unique materials telling about the colonies of our country in the United States of America and the activities of the Russian-American Company. The study of the Presidential Library’s collections is carried out through an extensive network of remote access centers, which are located in all regions of Russia and abroad. So far, there are about 1000 of them.

The specialists of the Presidential Library stressed: the beginning of Russian America is usually associated with the First and Second Kamchatka expeditions of Vitus Bering (1724–1730 and 1732–1743, respectively). Then, our sailors, despite the difficult weather conditions, managed to approach the North-West Coast of the North American continent. Returning to St. Petersburg, Bering expressed confidence in the proximity of America to Kamchatka and for the first time offered to begin trade with the indigenous population. Details of the First Kamchatka Expedition are reflected in the book “The First Sea Journey of the Russians, undertaken to solve a geographic problem: will Asia unite America implemented in 1727, 28 and 29 under the command of Captain Vitus Bering” (1823), an electronic copy of which is stored in the collections of the Presidential Library.

In the course of the Second Kamchatka Expedition, Captain Bering studied the Arctic Ocean in the strait between the continents and the North American coast. The Decree on the departure of Bering to the expedition was signed by the Empress Anna Ioannovna.

In the second half of the 18th century, the merchant Grigory Shelekhov made a significant contribution to the development of America. He equipped several fishing vessels to Alaska, the Kuril and Aleutian Islands. It was Shelekhov who in 1784 founded the first Russian permanent settlement in America on Kodiak Island, which for a long time has been the center of colonization of this territory. The traveler himself details about it in the book “Russian merchant of eminent citizen Grigorye Shelekhov, his first wandering from 1783 to 1787 from Okhotsk across the Eastern Ocean to the American shores, and returning him to Russia” (1793).  

The landmark is the creation in 1799 of a Russian-American Company, which "... is made up of two pre-owned private companies among Golikov and Shelikhov as well Mylnikov with his comrades ...". The rights and privileges of the new organization were secured by Paul I in the imperial patent document. According to the document, the company was able to take into Russian possession all the land opened by our settlers along the shores of North-West America and the Aleutian, Kuril and other islands, “if these were not occupied by any other nations”.

The album “Around the World with Krusenstern” (2005) describes Russians interacted with local peoples. It contains drawings made by the participants of the round-the-world trip led by captains Ivan Krusenstern and Yury Lisyansky. Among them are the images of the main Russian office in Pavlovskaya Harbor on Kodiak Island and the settlement of the Russian-American company in Sitka.

The first chief ruler of Russian America in 1802 was the notable merchant Alexander Baranov. In 1816 he was replaced by Lieutenant Commander Leonty Gagemeister. Lyudmila Spiridonova, head of the department of scientific publications of the Russian State Archive of the Navy, told about at the webinar: “From now on, only Navy officers ruled the Russian colonies in Northwest America, until the sale of its territories to the United States. improve the lives of the native population they control. Research conducted by sailors in these remote areas was not limited to the vast of ocean. The coast and the interior of Alaska also attracted their attention”.