The man who built Russia’s empire in America

Did you know that the Russians once had an empire (of sorts) in the Pacific North West of America? No, neither did Sam Leith. He has reviewed ‘a blindly good story extremely well told’ about this forgotten history (Glorious Misadventures: Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of Russian America by Owen Matthews) in this week’s edition of The Spectator. Here’s a passage to whet your appetite:

 ‘Like most if not all imperial adventures, the civilising mission (ho ho) followed the money. Ever since the first Cossack pirate found a way through the Bering Strait, fur, or ‘soft gold’, was what they were all after. The discovery that in Chinese entrepot towns the pelt of a single sea-otter would fetch the equivalent of two years’ salary for an ordinary seaman was all anyone needed to know. Fur, tea and American manufactures were the basis of a Pacific triangle trade. The Brits took an interest, and so did the Spanish — who then held bits of the West Coast up to San Francisco.