http://en.ria.ru/world/20140325/1887441 ... ussia.html
There are days when it pays to read the source and full article. Check the other articles at Danyeer's website.
This is a political stunt, of sorts.
The US bought Alaska from Russia in 1867:
http://www.alaskahistoricalsociety.org/ ... ka/FAQs/15
Watch Wild West Alaska or Alaska, the Last Frontier on TV sometime. You will notice that the demographics and land ownership have changed somewhat in the last 147 years. Alaska is a US state much like any other. There is no broad-based move to rejoin Russia.
FYI: The Russian River, which was the southern boundary of the Russian claims in North America, was only about 65 miles north of San Francisco. Fort Ross, their most southern settlement, is only about 25 miles further north.
http://www.fortross.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_America
"By 1804, Alexandr Baranov, now manager of the Russian–American Company, had consolidated the company's hold on fur trade activities in the Americas following his victory over the local Tlingit clan at the Battle of Sitka. The Russians never fully colonized Alaska. For the most part they clung to the coast and shunned the interior.
From 1812 to 1841, the Russians operated Fort Ross, California. From 1814 to 1817, Russian Fort Elizabeth was operating in Hawaii. By the 1830s, the Russian monopoly on trade was weakening. The British Hudson's Bay Company, based in Canada, set up posts on the southern edge of Russian America in 1839 under terms of a lease resulting from an earlier attempt in 1833 to block the establishment of such posts. The Hudson's Bay Company began siphoning off trade.
The Americans were also becoming a force. Baranov began to depend heavily on American supply ships, since they came more frequently than Russian ones. In addition, Americans could sell furs to the Canton (Chinese) market, which was closed to the Russians. The downside was that American hunters and trappers encroached on territory Russians considered theirs. The Russo-American Treaty of 1824 recognized exclusive Russian rights to the fur trade above Latitude 54°, 40' North, with the American rights and claims restricted to below that line. This division was repeated in the Treaty of Saint Petersburg, a parallel agreement with the British in 1825. The agreements soon went by the wayside, however, and with the retirement of Alexandr Baranov in 1818, the Russian hold on Alaska was further weakened.
When the Russian-American Company's charter was renewed in 1821, it stipulated that the chief managers from then on be naval officers. Most naval officers did not have any experience in the fur trade, so the company suffered. The second charter also tried to cut off all contact with foreigners, especially the competitive Americans. This strategy backfired since the Russian colony had become used to relying on American supply ships, and the United States had become a valued customer for furs. Eventually the Russian–American Company entered into an agreement with the Hudson's Bay Company, which gave the British rights to sail through Russian territory.
Although the mid-19th century was not a good time for Russians in Alaska, conditions improved for the coastal Alaska Natives who had survived contact, primarily the Aleut, Koniag, and Tlingit. The Tlingit were never conquered and continued to wage war on the Russians into the 1850s. The Aleut, many of whom had been removed from their home islands and sent as far south as California to hunt sea otter for Russians, continued to decline in population during the 1840s."
