Are there still russians in alaska

That hidden history lives on in a handful of elderly residents who speak a Russian dialect that has been passed down from generation to generation since the village was founded in , when Alaska was part of the Russian Empire. This tsarist-era version of Russian—along with other Russian customs and habits—remains in use because until the Sterling Highway connected Ninilchik to the outside world in , Russian descendants here were largely cut off from other communities.

They lived an isolated, subsistence life in which a trip to the nearest trading post meant a mile mush on a dogsled. Leman and the other men and women who still speak Ninilchik Russian are of Russian-Alaskan native heritage, and so I was accompanied on my rounds by Tiffany Stonecipher, the elders outreach coordinator for the Ninilchik tribe.

Discover the culture, history, and breathtaking geography of this far frontier and what it reveals about America in the 21st century. In the history of American land deals, it is second in importance only to the Louisiana Purchase.

This endeavor, based on a lucrative trade in the luxurious pelts of sea otters, had become shaky by the early decades of the 19th century, when Russians, strung largely along the coast, were trying to exert sovereignty over hundreds of thousands of square miles of territory in the face of increasing British and U.

Not everyone in the U. To celebrate the acquisition of Alaska, officials in Anchorage and Sitka, the former Russian colonial capital, are planning a grand sesquicentennial bash in Some residents are even suggesting it might be an opportunity for the next U.

The most obvious legacy is on a map, where Russian names mark point after point, from the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea to Baranof Island in southeast Alaska to all the streets, cities, islands, capes, and bays in between with names like Kalifornsky, Nikiski Chichagof, Romanzof, and Tsaritsa. By far the strongest living legacy of the Russian colonial era is the Russian Orthodox Church, most of whose worshippers are Alaska natives or the offspring of Russian-native unions.

Intermarriage between Russian colonizers and indigenous people from groups such as the Aleut, Alutiq, and Athabaskan was widespread, and today roughly 26, of their descendants—known since the colonial era as Creoles—worship in nearly a hundred Russian Orthodox churches statewide. On a blustery March afternoon I stood in the cemetery next to the church, where weathered, listing white Orthodox crosses were interspersed among more modern gravestones bearing names like Oskolkoff, Kvasnikoff, and Demidoff.

From the bluff above the village, I looked down on a ramshackle collection of wooden houses and across Cook Inlet to the towering, snowy peaks of the Chigmit Mountains.

Gazing past the onion domes, I found it easy to imagine that I was not in the U. Cossacks, joined by merchants and trappers known as promyshlenniki, hunted ermine, mink, sable, fox, and other furbearers as they subjugated, slaughtered, co-opted, and extracted payments from Siberian indigenous groups. By the promyshlenniki had reached the Pacific Ocean, and roughly a century later the tsars dispatched navigators such as Vitus Bering to explore the Aleutian Islands and sail deep into Alaska waters.

The Russian-driven slaughter of the otters would eventually nearly extirpate the original population of , in the waters of Alaska and the northern Pacific. By hostage-taking and killing, Russian promyshlenniki subjugated the indigenous Aleuts, who were skilled at hunting sea otters from their kayaks, and pressed them into service as the chief procurers of otter pelts.

In effect, the company ran the colony until the territory was sold in The whole story suggests a kind of haphazard, unfocused quality, though there are moments when they try to get their act together and send out bright people to turn it into a real colony.

Long fascinated by the colonial period, McMahan became especially intrigued by the fate of a star-crossed Russian vessel, the Neva, which played a pivotal role in the Alaska colony.

A foot frigate, the Neva was one of the first two Russian ships to circumnavigate the globe, an expedition that lasted from to During that voyage the Neva stopped in Sitka, where it played a decisive role in a Russian victory over the native Tlingit. It later became one of the vessels supplying the Alaska colony from St. At that time, the Fefelova family already had seven kids. Four more were born in Alaska. The older generations speak Russian. But, Fefelova says the younger generation prefers English.

Now, when they finish praying, Father starts reading them stories — all in American. Today, about people live in Nikolaevsk. The men in the village earn money by fishing, and sometimes by building fishing boats. The village was once famous for these boats. Instead of ordering new ones, people just sell them on. Fefelov was born in Brazil. He came to the U. He speaks fluent Russian and Old Church Slavnoic, and teaches children church songs. He also watches the evening news in English, however, and considers himself an American.

Women in Nikolaevsk wear sarafan — a traditional Russian dress. They make the dresses themselves. The men have long beards and wear Russian shirts. Denis says people in nearby towns are used to seeing the Old Believers dressed in their traditional clothing. But the local people, they know us. Ashley Thompson was the editor. Are there small communities from other countries where you are from? So when China gave all foreigners five years to leave the country, the Old Believers had a choice: go back to Russia, where they would be punished as deserters from communist Russia, or try their luck in another country.

Those who returned to Russia were immediately arrested and sent to jail. With the Cold War setting in, many countries wouldn't take religious refugees. The Old Believers scattered across the globe into Turkey, Argentina, and Australia, while the Yakunins and the Kalugins formed part of a group that went to Brazil.

Just outside of Sao Paulo, Father Nikolai Yakunin's family and Akati Kalugin worked as subsistence farmers, living in three makeshift Russian Orthodox villages in a rural community. While Brazil was the first place they lived where they could practice their faith freely, it was hard to make a living in South America.

It was a meager existence," Father Nikolai says. In addition to the tropical climate, the Old Believers found it difficult to adapt to the new calendar, which dictates when their holy days are. Father Nikolai was only nine when he left Brazil, but Akati Kalugin was already raising a family. With several mouths to feed, he had a hard time making a living and keeping his family together.

One day, his kids were playing outside when he heard his children screaming. He ran out to find his infant son foaming at the mouth. He was crawling everywhere and he saw something and he grabbed it. Kids can be kids," Kalugin says. That's how I lost the first one. This time, when the Kalugin family decided to move again, it was not to escape religious persecution, but for better economic opportunities. Kennedy offered them asylum. Some Old Believers settled in New Jersey, but many ended up in Woodburn, Oregon, hoping to find a place to permanently call home.

They got paid the same day in cash. And they went and they bought a sack of flour, a sack of potatoes. And Dad says, yep, we can live here. We can make a living here. But after only a few years, the elders began to fear that the younger generation was becoming too Americanized, drinking too much and hanging out with the wrong crowd. Older folks realized they have to go somewhere more remote.

With help from the Tolstoy Foundation, five families continued their migration up to a small piece of land just outside of Anchor Point on the Kenai Peninsula.

They lived in tents the first few months, while everyone pitched in to build the first few homes and buildings. In the beginning, the community tried to live a subsistence lifestyle, harvesting their own vegetables. There was a gate to the community that reinforced the self-isolation they were seeking. Now, in , Nikolaevsk remains a small village in Alaska of about people. Eligible bachelors must leave the tiny village to look for a bride.

Because of fishing and their ability to adapt, the Yakunin Clan lives comfortably in Alaska, able to afford large boats and trucks. Though Vasily Yakunin says his father and uncle knew nothing about fishing when they came to Alaska, the Russian fishing fleet today has a reputation for aggressive tactics and self-policing. Americans in the surrounding communities can share stories about the Russian fleet setting nets too close to other boats, ignoring calls from the Coast Guard, and only responding to help if it comes from another Russian.

That's not to say there haven't been some fractures among the clan beneath the surface. The community didn't have a priest when the Yakunin clan arrived in Alaska in They had lived without clergy since the reforms in the Russian Orthodox Church. But with their newfound freedom in the United States, this community had the means to look for a priest and Father Nikolai says they were longing for a leader. In , they traveled to Romania, found a bishop, and deemed him worthy to ordain the group's first new priest in over years.

The new priest and his followers built a traditional onion-domed church across the street from the more humble priestless church in Nikolaevsk, where those suspicious of the blasphemous ordaining continued to congregate.

In , the priestless church burned to the ground, leaving nothing but a mound of ash. Akati Kalugin, who belongs to the priestless group, grows so animated every time he talks about the incident, that he begins to lose his already slippery grasp of English. Guess what? They don't have any electrical in the church. How in the hell does it start?

There was no electrical?