A RUSSIAN COMMUNITY ON CALIFORNIA'S COAST
One night, after dinner, in Foster City, CA, we got a call from friends in Tennessee that they will be in the San Francisco Bay Area with their children--13 t0 15 years-old. "Is there a way that they could see living history of the California coast?" the mother asked. Discussing this with my wife, we decided to take them to Fort Ross, in Northern California, while they are here, this summer, in California.
Fort Ross, is a Russian settlement from the early 1800 and is located north of Jenner, California, on Highway 1. The Russians settled in the area, while they were hunting seals and other ocean animals. At the present time, the fort is considered a favorite historical site in California to visit. Here, you can see how the Russian hunters lived and hunted, while they stayed at the fort during their hunting trips in Northern California. The settlement was the only one in Northern California that the Russians had in the 1800's; that is, today, in good condition.
In Alaska the Russians had their homes. Since Alaska, down to areas north of San Francisco, was Russian territory, which was wild and primitive, Fort Ross was the only settlement that the Russian hunters had for safety and for supplies to make the long trip back to Alaska and Russia.
Fort Ross was the chief out post of Russian civilization in California. Around May 15, 1812, under the command of Ivan Alexander Kuskof, his party started to build a fortress--three months later, on August 30, 1812, it was dedicated and has been there ever since. It was rectangle in shape, a fourteen foot stockade of hewn timbers, and it was guarded by two-story blockhouse with portholes facing north and south.
The aea around the fort was saturated with wild-life, besides the wild-life of the ocean. Hunting deer and other animals was a common way to exist in Northern California along the coast. When you visit the fort today, you can re-live the day of the hunter by the exhibitions, and by the people re-acting the life around 1812, when the fort was built.
