On March 30, 1867, an agreement was signed in Washington on the sale by Russia of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to the United States of America.
There are thousands of myths about the sale of Alaska. Many believe that it was sold by Catherine II, some believe that it was not sold, but rented for 99 years, and allegedly Brezhnev refused to take it back. I will now tell you how things really were. Serfdom was abolished in Russia in 1861. To pay compensation to the landowners, Alexander II was forced in 1862 to borrow 15 million pounds from the Rothschilds at 5% per annum. However, the Rothschilds had to return something, and then the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich - the Tsar's younger brother - offered to sell "something unnecessary." The most unnecessary thing in Russia turned out to be Alaska.
On a gloomy cloudy day on December 16, 1866, a special meeting was held in St. Petersburg, which was attended by Alexander II, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, the ministers of finance and the Ministry of the Navy, as well as the Russian envoy to Washington, Baron Eduard Andreevich Stekl. All participants approved the sale idea. At the suggestion of the Ministry of Finance, a threshold was set for the amount - at least $ 5 million in gold. On December 22, 1866, Alexander II approved the border of the territory. In March 1867, Steckle arrived in Washington and formally addressed Secretary of State William Seward.
Alaska, discovered on August 21, 1732 by a Russian expedition led by M. S. Gvozdev and I. Fedorov, was the only possession of Russia outside the Eurasian continent.
The signing of the treaty took place on March 30, 1867 in Washington. An area of 1 million 519 thousand square meters. km was sold for 7.2 million dollars in gold, that is, 0.0474 dollars per hectare. Is it a lot or a little? If the current dollar is worth 0.0223663 grams of gold, then the then - sample of 1861 - contained 1.50463 grams. This means that the then dollar was equal to 67 dollars 27 cents in today's money. Therefore, we sold Alaska at the rate of 3.19 current dollars per hectare.
By the way, it would not have been possible to pay off the debt to the Rothschilds with the money received for Alaska. The then British pound was worth $ 4.87. That is, the borrowed amount was $ 73 million. Alaska was sold for less than a tenth of that amount.
However, Russia did not get this money either. The Russian ambassador to the USA (North American United States) Eduard Stekl received a check for 7 million 035 thousand dollars - of the initial 7.2 million he kept 21 thousand for himself, and gave 144 thousand as bribes to senators who voted to ratify the treaty. And he transferred these 7 million to London by bank transfer, and from London to St. Petersburg by sea, the gold bars bought for this amount were transported. When converting first into pounds, and then into gold, another 1.5 million was lost, but this was not the last loss.
The Orkney bark, carrying the precious cargo, sank on July 16, 1868 on its way to St. Petersburg. It is not known whether it contained gold at that time, or whether it did not leave the borders of Foggy Albion at all. The insurance company, which insured the ship and cargo, declared itself bankrupt, and the damage was only partially compensated.
The mystery of the death of Orkney was revealed seven years later: on December 11, 1875, when loading luggage on the steamer Moselle, which was leaving Bremen for New York, a powerful explosion occurred. 80 people were killed and another 120 were injured. The documents accompanying the cargo survived, and by five o'clock in the evening of the same day, the investigation learned the name of the owner of the exploded baggage. It turned out to be an American citizen William Thomson.
According to the documents, he sailed to Southampton, and his luggage was supposed to go to the United States. When they tried to arrest Thomson, he tried to shoot himself, but he died only on the 17th from blood poisoning. During this time, he managed to give confessionary statements. However, he admitted not only in an attempt to send the steamer Moselle to the bottom in order to receive insurance payments for the lost luggage.
In this way, he has already sent to the bottom almost a dozen ships.
