MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Russia lost a war in Crimea in the middle of the 19th century. It left the country deep in debt, and to ease that burden, Russia cut a real estate deal with the U.S. and sold Alaska to the Americans. Now, Presidents Trump and Putin meet Friday in Alaska to discuss another difficult and costly Russian war involving Crimea. For more, we are joined by NPR's Greg Myre. He is in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Hey, Greg.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: So this summit, which is coming together really fast, why has Alaska been chosen as the site?
MYRE: The decision seems practical. It's the place where the U.S. and Russia almost meet, separated by just 55 miles of the Bering Strait. But beyond geography, there's also symbolism and a fascinating shared history. Alaska was actually a full-fledged Russian colony. Some Russians are pointing that out on social media, posting photos of Russian Orthodox churches with their onion domes that were built in Alaska in the 19th century. I spoke with Lee Farrow, a history professor at Auburn University at Montgomery and the author of a book on the U.S. purchase of Alaska.
LEE FARROW: Some Americans might know that we bought Alaska from Russia, but they don't know necessarily that it was a real colony there - it wasn't just a piece of territory that they had sort of stuck a flag in - and that they had a strong presence in California as well.
KELLY: And Greg, how good a deal was this for Russia to sell Alaska? It was then, and is now, very rich in natural resources.
MYRE: Well, not a good deal for the price they got - $7.2 million, which works out to 2 cents an acre when the Americans bought it in 1867. But the Russians saw it as an expensive outpost they couldn't afford. Russian fur traders had been in Alaska for more than a half-century. They had killed off most of the bears and wolves and otters. The Russians didn't see an economic reason to stay, and Alaska was so remote, even for Russia, it was sometimes called Siberia's Siberia. But there are Russians today who think Alaska should be theirs. When Farrow went to Russia and spoke about her book several years ago, she always got the same question.
FARROW: In every audience, there was at least one person who asked whether or not the United States had legitimately purchased Alaska. There has been a very strong narrative in Russia that we either did not pay for it, or it was a lease and we should have returned it already.
KELLY: So interesting. What about the U.S. end of this? How was the purchase viewed here in the U.S. when it took place?
MYRE: Critics called it Seward's folly, after Secretary of State William Seward, who negotiated the deal. They said the territory was a frozen wasteland. But Farrow says that description was inaccurate, then and now. At the time, the purchase didn't really attract much attention outside of Washington. However, that said, the U.S. government didn't invest much in Alaska, and the relatively few Americans who went there were missionaries or adventurers who were largely on their own. Only decades later did Alaska begin to develop. Gold was discovered in 1896. It became a state in 1959. And large oil reserves were found in the 1950s and '60s.
KELLY: And in the few seconds we have left, I do want to focus on Crimea. It had this war in the 1850s. It is still being fought over today. Why is it so contested?
MYRE: Yeah, it's a valuable piece of real estate on the Black Sea. Russia fought a war there in the 1850s against the Ottoman Empire, thinking they would win easily, but they didn't. They lost. Fast forward to 2014. Crimea was part of Ukraine, but Putin seized it in an invasion, marking the start of the current war. Ukraine is demanding it back, and it's expected to feature in the Trump-Putin summit this Friday.
KELLY: Thank you very much. NPR's Greg Myre.
MYRE: Sure thing. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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