Russia and the United States are indeed “close neighbors”: on the Beringstraat between Alaska and Siberia, the countries are only 89 kilometers apart. There are also two islands in the Zeestraat. Klein Diomedes is American territory, Groot Diomedes is Russian. The islands are less than 4 kilometers.
All eyes focused on Putin and Trump: coming top consultation in Alaska for the time being in favor of Moscow
The United States acquired Alaska in the nineteenth century, when they also bought Louisiana from the French (1803). They received 15 million dollars for it. Sixteen years later, the US bought Florida for 5 million dollars from Spain. California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona, who were Mexican territory, bought it in 1848 for 18 million dollars. Five years later, New Mexico was added.
Expensive purchase
Alaska bought the US from Russia in 1867 for $ 7.2 million. Tsar Alexander II considered it a worthless wilderness, and difficult to defend. American public opinion agreed with him, until thirty years later gold was found. Since then, copper, zinc, lead, silver and rare minerals have also been found in Alaska. Alaska is also an important petroleum producer.
Yet analysts Alaska still find an expensive purchase: the profit of all those raw materials goes to private operators, and the sparsely populated Alaska contributes little to the tax revenues of the US.