"The forgotten empire": when tsarist Russia colonized California

Approximately 145 kilometers north of San Francisco, on the Pacific coast, an Orthodox chapel, Cyrillic inscriptions, and a wooden fortress recall a time when part of that territory was in the hands of Tsarist Russia. This settlement, known as Fort Ross, represents a little-known part of Russian colonial history in North America. The colony was part of an empire that extended beyond the traditional borders of European Russia, reaching the west coast of America. The article describes this episode as a "forgotten empire," suggesting that many people are unaware of this aspect of Russian territorial expansion. Today, the remains of this presence remain as testimonies to an era when the tsars had colonial interests in territories very far from St. Petersburg.