Fort Ross may lose its ties with Russia: California authorities did not renew the agreement with Fort Ross Conservancy

A half-century-long partnership has come to an end

Fort Ross State Historic Park in California — a former Russian settlement founded in 1812 by the Russian-American Company as a trading and agricultural outpost to supply Russian possessions in Alaska — has found itself in a new situation: state authorities have refused to renew the agreement with the nonprofit organization Fort Ross Conservancy, which for more than half a century took part in preserving and promoting the fort's heritage. About the expiration of the agreement on November 3 and the authorities' refusal to continue cooperation RIA Novosti was told by the society's vice president, Robin Joy Wellman; the organization itself confirmed that its partnership with California State Parks, which lasted more than 50 years, is coming to an end.

What changes for the park and its visitors

The park itself is not being closed: visitors will still be able to come to the fort, and state authorities have announced neither a closure nor an abandonment of heritage preservation. What is changing is the format of work: the Conservancy will no longer be able to operate inside the state park the way it used to, although the organization will remain an independent nonprofit entity and promises to continue its research and educational work outside the former framework.

What the society fears

According to Wellman, it was the society that for decades maintained contacts with the Russian-speaking diaspora, the Orthodox Church, Russian institutions, diplomats and scholars, and it was precisely these ties that made it possible to preserve the historical accuracy of the narratives about the fort's Russian period. “When we are no longer allowed to work in the park the way we have worked for the past 50 years, everything changes”, Gazeta.Ru quotes her as saying. California's park service, in her assessment, does not have such ties, so the tours may become less substantive: visitors will still be able to come, but they will learn less about the settlement's past. Wellman, who worked at Fort Ross for 30 years, believes that an experienced specialist can tell the story of the chapel or the archaeological excavations in a completely different way from someone who has simply come to lead a tour. These assessments belong to the organization itself; the position of the California authorities and the motives behind their decision are not given in the publications.

What is being lost after half a century of work

The scale of the Conservancy's activities shows how much work is at stake: over half a century, hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren have gone through its educational programs; the organization ran tours, festivals and research projects, and its work involved not only members of the Russian community but also descendants of the indigenous peoples of Alaska and California, historians and residents of the coast. The organization itself calls the authorities' decision the end of an entire era. The Russian period of the fort ended in 1841; today the park grounds still preserve the house of the last Russian manager, Alexander Rotchev, as well as a reconstructed Orthodox chapel, a palisade, towers and other structures of the Russian period.