Russian Rule : California’s Ft. Ross Was Once Their Remotest Outpost

Soviet television is showing a documentary about a relatively little-known episode in California history.

The story of Ft. Ross, from 1812 to 1841 Russia’s most remote outpost, describes a settlement of soldiers, farmers and fur hunters on a lonely stretch of the rugged Sonoma County coast 100 miles northwest of San Francisco.

A Soviet TV crew was here several months ago to film the documentary about the country’s California connection at the 19th-Century fort.

“The filming of the Ft. Ross story is a spinoff of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost , letting the people know more about our history,” said Svetlana Fedorova, a visiting Soviet ethnologist. “In Moscow, I have had numerous letters and phone calls from friends throughout the Soviet Union telling me they have seen Ft. Ross on television.”

Fedorova, 60, who works at the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ethnography in Moscow, is the Soviet Union’s leading authority on the period when Russia owned Alaska and Ft. Ross. She has written four books and numerous scientific papers on the subject.

This was Federova’s fourth visit to research the fort, which consists of a large, square enclosure within 20-foot-high redwood plank walls, containing several rough-hewn timber structures overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Ft. Ross is having one of its busiest years since it was established as a state historic park in 1906. Earlier this month, 20 archeology students from the University of Wisconsin arrived to spend two months excavating a Russian graveyard.

“The graves have never been exhumed,” park ranger Dan Murley said. “It is believed about 50 Russians are buried in the cemetery just outside the stockade. We have a pretty good idea where the graves are located.”

The grave markers have long since disappeared. The plan, Murley said, is to find the burials, identify the remains, photograph and record any artifacts, install replica grave markers and have last rites performed by a Russian Orthodox priest.

During the last several months, archeology students led by Associate Prof. Kent Lightfoot of UC Berkeley have recorded 24 additional sites surrounding Ft. Ross. These sites were used by Russians, Aleuts and Eskimos from Kodiak Island, by the sea animal hunters at the fort, and by Kashaya Pomo Indians, who were laborers for the Russians.

Among the 25 to 75 Russians stationed at the fort at any given time, fewer than half a dozen were women, wives of ranking officials. Alaskan hunters of sea otters and sea mammals who were brought here by the Russians were all men, although many of the Alaskans and Russians paired off with Kashaya Pomo Indian women.

In the 1820 census at the fort, 42 local Indian women were listed as married or cohabiting with Russians. When the Russians sold the fort to John Sutter in 1841, many took their Indian wives and children back to Russia with them.

Russian descendants of those American Indians live in the Soviet Union, and some Kashaya Pomos living near Ft. Ross have Russian ancestors. There are several Russian words in the Kashaya Pomo language.

“We are working with the local Kashaya Pomo people to collect information from their oral tradition pertaining to the Russian colony,” Lightfoot said. “We are planning to conduct digs at the Alaskan and Indian village sites that existed during the Russian period near Ft. Ross the next three summers.”

On the Russian side, documents provide some idea of what life was like.

“What an enchanting land California is,” wrote Alexander Rotchez, reflecting on his five years as the last Russian commandant at Ft. Ross (1836-1841). “Everything is so fragrant, the iridescent hummingbird flutters, vibrates and shimmers over a flower. The virgin soil of California yields marvelous fruit. I spent the best years of my life there.”

Otto Von Kotzebue, a Russian navigator, described the Kashaya Pomo Indians in his 1824 journal, noting: “The inhabitants of Ross live in the greatest concord with the Indians who work as day laborers for wages. They (the Indians) willingly give their daughters in marriage to Russians and Aleutians; and from these unions ties of relationship have arisen which strengthen the good understanding between them.”

The Russians eventually gave up their colony in California because of the depletion of the local sea otter population, failure of farming and the clash of international political interests.

Visitors see memorabilia of the Russian period on display, walk through the old Russian buildings, the barracks, a jail, workshops, the Russian commandant’s house, fur barn, seven-sided watchtowers, the community kitchen and the first Russian Orthodox chapel built in North America outside Russia.

Special events take place at Ft. Ross State Park throughout the year. On July 4, traditional Russian Orthodox services are held in the chapel. The annual living history day, a re-enactment of life as it was when the Russians were here in 1836, was celebrated one recent Saturday.

The gift shop has more books on the Russian episode in California history than any bookstore, including two by Svetlana Fedorova translated into English. Russian cookbooks, needlework books, traditional folk tale books (all in English) as well as Matreshka dolls (the Russian stacking dolls) are sold, along with descendants of apple trees planted by the Russians.

“These are exciting times at Ft. Ross,” said Lyn Kalani of the Interpretive Assn. “In addition to all the archeological activity, we are getting more visitors from the Soviet Union than ever before. We were told by a group of Russian visitors recently that a rock opera about Ft. Ross is being performed in Moscow.”