155 years ago America bought Alaska

On October 18, 1867, exactly 155 years ago, the ceremony of transferring rights of the Russian territories of Alaska to the United States of America took place. The northern lands were sold for 7 million 200 thousand dollars (about 120 million dollars in total today).

The territory of Alaska was discovered by the expedition of M. Gvozdev and I. Fedorov back in 1732 and was the only Russian possession on the American continent. By the middle of the XIX century, the population of Alaska was 2.5 thousand Russians and 60 thousand Indians and Aleuts.

After the purchase of the lands, America did not recognize Alaska as its territory for a long time and did not assign it the status of a state. But everything changed dramatically exactly after oil fields were discovered in the frozen depths.

Since 1917, on October 18, Alaska residents have widely and festively celebrated Alaska Day, which has received the level of a state holiday. And in remote settlements of the state, there are still ancient Orthodox churches and Russian-speaking Americans.

Nowadays, a charter program is organized in the summer between Anchorage and the Russian Far East (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yakutsk), with the exception of the last two years. The state border of the USA and the Russian Federation runs through the Bering Strait between the islands of Ratmanov (Russia) and Kruzenshtern (America), located at a distance of only 4 km from each other.