At the time when Napoleon Bonaparte was preparing to invade the Russian Empire, it was so vast that it founded colonies in California and on Hawaii.
On this day the Russian empire founded a colony in California. At that time the whole of Alaska belonged to Russia, and the expansion continued south towards Mexico. At the same time the Spanish expansion arrived from the south (founding missions San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara etc.).
The aforementioned Russian colony in California was called Krepost Ross (“krepost” means fortress in Russian). Today it is known as Fort Ross and is located in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. The colony was significant because of trade, especially in fur, and because of farming and procuring food supplies for Russian settlements in Alaska.
In 1841 Russia no longer had a need for this colony since alternative ways of supplying Alaska with food were found (via Vancouver). The colony was sold to John Sutter for $ 30,000.
