31.07 19th Century Russian Fort in US Holds Lessons in Diplomacy
FORT ROSS, Calif., July 31 (by Karin Zeitvogel for RIA Novosti) - As the tiny Russian settlement of Fort Ross along Californias Pacific Coast celebrates its 201st anniversary, Americans and Russians taking part in the ceremonies called on the leaders of their respective governments to learn from the Russians and Native Americans living there in the 1800s to improve relations between the two countries.
Russian traders who settled at this idyllic spot and built the wooden stockade and houses that make up Fort Ross lived side by side in harmony with the local Kashaya tribe, Native Americans on whose ancestral lands the settlement was built.
The Kashaya leader traded the land to the Russians, and the Russians drilled and they found good water and they found good trees here, so they decided to build a fort, Martina Morgan, a member of the Kashaya tribe who volunteers at Fort Ross, which is now a California state historic park, told RIA Novosti.
In the eyes of the Kashaya, living with Russians was preferable to having the other colonial force in western America, the Spanish, on their ancestral lands, said volunteer Amy Lemmer, who was one of dozens of re-enactors helping celebrate Fort Ross birthday this month by wearing period clothes and doing chores the way they were done in the 1800s.
