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1775: Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra anchors in outer Bodega Bay, trades with the local Indians.
1784 — Russians Grigory Shelikov and his wife Natalia establish a base on Kodiak Island.
1799 — Russian American Company (with manager Aleksandr Baranov) establishes Novo Arkhangelsk (New Archangel, now Sitka, Alaska).
19th century
1806 — Count Nikolai Rezanov, Imperial Ambassador to Japan and director of the Russian American Company, visits the Presidio of San Francisco.
1806–1813: American ships bring Russians and Alaska Natives on 12 California fur hunts.
1808–1811 — Ivan Kuskov lands in Bodega Bay (Port Rumiantsev), builds structures and hunts in the region.
1812 — March 15, Ivan Kuskov with 25 Russians and 80 Native Alaskans arrives at Port Rumiantsev and proceeds north to establish Fortress Ross.
1812 — September 11, The Fortress is dedicated on the name-day of Emperor Alexander I
1815 — First Russian migrant to California, José Antonio Bolcoff, arrives.
1816 — Russian exploring expedition led by Captain Otto von Kotzebue visits California with naturalists Adelbert von Chamisso, Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz, and artist Louis Choris.
1817 — Chief Administrator Captain Leonty Gagemeister conducts treaty with local tribal chiefs for possession of property near Fortress Ross. First such treaty conducted with native peoples in California.
1818 — The Rumiantsev, first of four ships built at Fortress Ross. The Buldakov, Volga and Kiahtha follow, as well as several longboats.
1821 — Russian Imperial decree gives Native Alaskans and Creoles civil rights protected by law
1836 — Fr. Veniaminov (St. Innocent) visits Fort Ross, conducts services, and carries out census.
1841 — Rotchev sells Fort Ross and accompanying land to John Sutter.
Migration history
After the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1881, Mexico frequently came under consideration as a possible refuge for Russian Jews seeking to emigrate. In June 1891, Jacob Schiff, an American Jewish businessman with railroad interests in Mexico, wrote to Ernest Cassel to enquire about the possibility for settlement of Russian Jews there. However, Russian Jews would not begin to arrive in significant quantities until the 1920s.
Pryguny in Baja California
From 1905 to 1906, about 50 families of Spiritual Christian Pryguny (colloquially known as Molokans), who arrived in Los Angeles from Russia, sought a rural location, and relocated to 13,000 acres (53 km) of land they had purchased in Guadalupe, Baja California in Mexico. Theirs would become the most successful Prygun colony cluster in North America. There, they build houses largely in the Russian style, but of adobe rather than wood, and grew a variety of cash crops including mostly wheat, alfalfa, grapes, and tomatoes. Their village was originally quite isolated, reflecting their desire to withdraw from society, but in 1958, road construction in the area resulted in an influx of Mexican and other settlers; some chose to flee encroaching urbanization, and returned to the United States. By the 1990s, only one family remained in the area.
Notable Russian-Mexicans
Artist
Arnold Belkin, Canadian-born Mexican painter to Russian Jewish father and English Jewish mother.
Krauze, Corinne Azen; Katz de Gugenheim, Ariela (1987). Los judíos en México: una historia con énfasis especial en el período de 1857 a 1930/The Jews in Mexico: a history with special emphasis on the period 1857 to 1930. Universidad Iberoamericana. ISBN9789688590225.
Hardwick, Susan Wiley (1993). Russian refuge: religion, migration, and settlement on the North American Pacific rim. Geography Research Paper Series. University of Chicago Press. ISBN9780226316116.
Further reading
Story, Sydney Rochelle (1960). Spiritual Christians in Mexico: profile of a Russian village (Ph.D. dissertation). University of California, Los Angeles. OCLC17406191.
Muranaka, Therese Adams (1988). Spirit jumpers: the Russian Molokans of Baja California. Ethnic technology notes. Vol. 21. San Diego: Museum of Man. ISBN9780937808467. OCLC18928066.
Russian diaspora