FEFU Associate Professor Samoilenko estimated losses from sale of Alaska 50 years later

VLADIVOSTOK, 18 October – RIA Novosti. Petr Samoilenko, an associate professor of political science at the Far Eastern Federal University School of Arts and Humanities, says that Russia’s losses from the sale of Alaska will only increase after 50 years.

The Alaska Peninsula is located in the northwest of North America, between the Bay of Bristol of the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean, the indigenous people are Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts. Russian settlers appeared here in the middle of the 17th century. The United States bought Alaska from Russia with the Aleutian Islands for 7.2 million dollars in gold (a little less than 11 million tsar’s rubles), the act of transferring the colonies was signed in the capital on October 18 (October 6 old style) 1867 . The number of Russian settlements in North America – Novoarkhangelsk (now the city of Sitka).

“After the sale of Alaska, the loss of natural resources is obvious, but at this step, we have lost certain geopolitical advantages that are precisely associated with the location of this site in Russia. This is North America, the Bering Strait, the northern part of Alaska. Alaska is a part of Russia. The Pacific Ocean, part of which is a particularly rich 200-mile economic zone, will make it possible to fully control the Bering Strait – Northern Sea Route, which affects the development of the Arctic … And in 50-100 years these will be, Samoylenko told RIA Novosti , the losses will increase, it will become even more pronounced.”

According to the expert, Arctic projects, shipping lines to the largest ports of Northeast Asia are now actively developing, which significantly increases the importance of the Arctic, and more and more countries are “rushing to this region.”

According to him, the sale of Alaska brought “greater economic losses.” “Taking into account the gradual warming, there is an increase in dry shipping, navigation time along the Northern Sea Route, which allows more cargo to be delivered along it. Significantly affects the increase in attractiveness and the fact that Russia begins to actively develop infrastructure – ports, bunkering terminals,” said the agency’s interlocutor.

According to the expert, all of the above was not obvious at the time, 155 years ago, “we are now talking about the events of the 21st century, taking into account modern realities.”