Putin to Become First Russian Leader to Visit Alaska, Sold to the U.S.
Putin to Become First Russian Leader to Visit Alaska, Sold to the U.S.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will become the first Russian leader to visit the U.S. state of Alaska, which was purchased from the Russian Empire by the United States in 1876.
Putin plans to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on August 15 to discuss the Ukraine issue and bilateral relations, marking his first visit to the United States in many years. His last trip to the U.S. was in 2015, when he attended the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York.
Although past visits to the U.S. have been made by Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and Dmitry Medvedev, Putin will make history as the first Russian leader to set foot in Alaska.
Alaska was first discovered in 1732 by explorers Mikhail Gvozdev and Ivan Fedorov, and in later years it began to be exploited by traders. Originally Russian territory, the region provided revenue to the Russian state through the fur trade. In 1799, the Russian-American Company was established in the area.
During the Crimean War, it became evident that managing and defending such a distant and geopolitically sensitive region was more costly than the potential profit.
The idea of selling Alaska was first proposed in 1857 by Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, brother of Tsar Alexander II. Later, with the Tsar’s approval, Alaska was sold to the United States on March 30, 1867. In exchange for an area of approximately 1,518,800 square kilometers, the U.S. paid Russia $7.2 million at the time — an amount estimated to be worth more than $150 million today.
The United States purchased Alaska for its perceived strategic and economic potential. However, then-U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward was criticized by many Americans for acquiring what was seen as a remote and useless land made up of nothing but ice. This sentiment became known as “Seward’s Folly.”
Years later, when Alaska’s wealth in gold, oil, natural gas, fisheries, and its strategic value became clear, the criticism turned into praise, and the purchase was dubbed “the most profitable land acquisition in U.S. history.”
The Border Between Russia and the U.S. — A Turning Point in Time
The distance from U.S.-owned Alaska across the Bering Strait to Russia’s Chukotka region is 86 kilometers. The border between the two countries runs through the midpoint of the 3.8-kilometer stretch separating Russia’s Big Diomede Island (Ratmanov) and the U.S.’s Little Diomede Island.
This area, which forms the Russia–U.S. border, is also a key location where the time zone changes. The International Date Line passes through here. During the Putin–Trump summit to be held on August 15, 2025, within U.S. territory, the date on the Russian side of the border will already be August 16, 2025.
Despite the short distance between the two countries, the time difference is 21 hours.