The US Island That Once Belonged To Russia

The US Island That Once Belonged To Russia

A remote outpost

Located where the North Pacific Ocean meets the Bering Sea, the Reliance US Islands of Alalasca is surrounded by the regional area where North America transits in Siberia. The island is located in the west west of Hawaii; Its position on the horoscope of East Asia makes it one of Alaska's more remote and silly communities. 

The US Island That Once Belonged To Russia

A 9,000-year-old culture

Today, around 5000 people call the Unlassika house, including fishermen and indigenous Anangax people (oo-nang-akhkh). Also known as Alegs, the Anangax Islands and parts of the Alaska Peninsula live for at least 9,000 years, creating a livelihood lifestyle, which attracted every resource offered by land and sea.

But in the last several centuries, the Anangax population has decreased due to illness and their culture, which is on the heels of colonialism has gradually crashed. Today there are approximately 3,800 anangaxes in the Alaska and Aleutian Islands. Shaila Shashnikoff, 24, and her 17-year-old brother Talon Shashikofof are 200 or more, who still live at Anlasca. 

A 9,000-year-old culture

A piece of Russia in the US

After the Danish explorer Witas Bearings and his Russian counterpart Alexei Chirikov became the first known European to visit Aleutian Islands in 1741, waves of Russian fur traders came to the archipelago for the discovery of sea ots and fur seals. In the second half of 1700, the island became a colony of the Russian Empire. Today many residents still have Russian surnames.

The Russian Orthodox Church followed the fur hunter, built small houses of worship in the islands and converts many Asangax into their faith. Although the United States bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 when the control of the Aleutian Islands, the Russian Orthodox Heritage survived. Anlaska Church of the Holy Ascent (pictured here) is one of the few Russian conservative houses of worship that lives.

Created in 1896, it is the oldest cruciform-style cathedral in North America, and includes the original icon and interior section of the former churches built on the same site in 1808 and 1825.

Painful memories

After the Japanese strikes, the US Army ordered the Anangax mandatory evacuation from the Alangax for their safety and prepared the army for the arrival of military forces. Residents were given less than one day notice, each was allowed a suitcase and they were not told where they were going or when they would return. Altogether, 881 Anangax was fired from nine villages in the archipelago and was trained in cannibal for three years in the temperate rainforest of southeast Alaska. Many people never left their homeland, watching trees alone. Due to poor housing and sanitation conditions and limited access to health care, the population of about 10% of the camp was over. Those who returned to Eilasca in 1945, their villages were either robbed or burnt.

In the 1980s, UNANGES filed lawsuits against Japanese-Americans as well as interns during the war, as well as for the treatment of diseases and deprivation of their rights. In 1988, a replacement law was apologizing to the financial compensation and the Asangax of both the Congress and the President. The etched stone slab painted in the community of Unalaska is a memorial for that dark period.

Painful memories

Liberal marine

Apart from an abundance of life-feathers, the nutritious nutrient water of Unalaska is one of the largest concentrations of marine mammals in the world, including orchas, del portoise, sea otter, seaport seals and whales (humpback, pilot and fin). Stellar's sea lions gather on different rocks, known as Rookies and give birth between May and July.

Aleutian coastal lines are also home to the nesting marine population, which is larger than the rest of America.

Bird enthusiasts travel around the world to see various waterfalls, especially the ultra-rare whiskey oaklet.