Location: Healdsburg, CA Map
Constructed: 1812
Fees and permits: A day-use vehicle permit costs $8.
Fort Ross is a historic Russian fortress that was constructed in future state of California to protected South borders of the spreading Russian Empire against Spanish Empire to the South. Fort Ross was found here as a fortress post for the Russian empire in 1812. Fort Ross was intended to safeguard the possessions of the Russian tsars in the New World from competing Spaniards to the south. Napoleon's betrayal of the Spanish kings allowed cooperation between the two countries. Otter hunting and agricultural ventures were chief tasks of the new settlers. However its role was fairly brief and the fort along with surrounding lands was sold in 1841 following decimation of local fauna by international over hunting.
Fort Ross (probably derived from Russian Россия,
transcription Rossija, for Russia) was a branch of the
Russian-American trading company in California from 1812 to 1841. It
is located on the Pacific coast in what is now Sonoma County, about
90 miles northwest of San Francisco.
As the southernmost
fortified outpost of Russian America, Fort Ross served both as a
base for fur hunting and to supply Russian trading posts in Alaska
with food.
With declining sea otter populations and
unsuccessful agricultural exploitation, Fort Ross became
increasingly uneconomical from the 1830s onwards. At the same time,
the Russo-American Company faced increasing difficulties in
maintaining its territorial claims against mounting pressure from
Mexican and American settlers.
In 1841, Fort Ross was finally
sold by the Russian-American Company's agent, Dionissi Sarembo, to
Johann August Sutter, who incorporated it into his private colony of
New Helvetia, which was under Mexico's control. After the
Mexican-American War, all of Upper California (Alta California) and
with it Fort Ross fell to the United States in 1848 in the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo.
In 1906 the fort was sold to the State of
California and in 1916 and 1925 portions of the buildings damaged by
decay and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake were reconstructed. In
1948 the only completely preserved building was restored, and after
a fire in 1970 the Orthodox chapel was subsequently restored. The
entire complex had already been recognized as a National Historic
Landmark a decade earlier. The reconstruction of a two-story
warehouse was completed in 2012.
Today the fort is used for
tourism and serves as a reminder of America's Russian colonial
history. Fort Ross has been listed as a state park in California
since 1962.
There are motels located about a half mile drive
further up Highway 1. You can also just camp in your car, although
it is not recommended that you do this in the Fort Ross parking lot.
Camping
Basic camping facilities are available to the south
about a 2-min drive at The Reef Campground. (Pit toilets, camp
sites, dirt road, pay phone. Cell phones don't work here.) Open most
of the year. Other camp grounds are to the north, 10-20 miles.
Back country
The coastal mountains that tower over the fort
have some great hiking trails. Just ask at the visitors center.
there are also hiking trails along the bluffs to the north and south
of the fort.
Background: Russia's expansion into America
In
1639, while the Thirty Years' War was still going on in Western Europe,
Russian hunters and soldiers advanced to the shores of the Pacific
Ocean. In 1648, the Cossack Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev, together with
Fedot Popov and Gerasim Ankudinov, sailed through the straits between
Asia and America, disproving the notion that there was a land connection
between Asia and America. But it was not until the Russian advance to
Alaska in the course of the Second Kamchatka Expedition in 1741 under
Bering and Chirikov and the associated discovery of its economic
potential that the Russian expansion to America began. Fueled by the
profits of seal and sea otter hunting, more than 40 Russian merchants
and trading companies outfitted expeditions to the Aleutian Islands and
mainland Alaska from 1745 through the late 18th century. In the early
19th century, an average of around 62,000 furskins entered the Russian
trade from North American branches each year.
This rapid growth
of the fur trade necessitated the establishment of permanent bases for
hunting and storing the furs. In 1784, Russian navigator and
entrepreneur Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov established the first permanent
trading post on Kodiak Island off the south coast of Alaska. At his
death in 1795, Shelikhov's company dominated Russian trade with America.
Two years later, his widow Natalia combined the trading company with a
business partner and a competitor to form the United American Company.
After another two years, the Russian-American Company was formed in 1799
by ukase of Tsar Paul I from the United American Company. This received
– always for twenty years – the trade monopoly in Russian America and
thus the right to use the Aleutian Islands, the Kuril Islands and the
territories on the North American mainland down to the 55th parallel,
the assumed landing point of Chirikov in 1741. About the shareholders
included members of the royal family, the Russian nobility and leading
officials of the Russian Empire.
In 1790 Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov had recruited the
fur trader Alexander Andreyevich Baranov as one of two area managers of
his company and sent him to Alaska. Baranov proved so successful in
running the fur business that he was appointed first head of the
Russian-American Company when it was founded in 1799. With the help of
his assistant Ivan Aleksandrovich Kuskov, Baranov later managed the
growing business of the trading company from Novo-Arkhangelsk (“New
Arkhangelsk”; today Sitka) and became one of the “main architects of
Russia’s southern expansion”.
On April 18, 1802, Baranov received
secret instructions from the Russian-American Company to expand Russian
territory southward beyond the 55th degree north latitude and to
establish a settlement near the 55th degree north for this purpose. They
wanted to establish facts to use the space created after the Nootka
Sound controversy and establish a recognized boundary between roughly 50
and 55 degrees north at some future point in the future. In 1803 Baranow
entered into a joint venture with the American Captain Joseph O'Cain. He
brought a group of Aleutians under Russian command on his ship to the
coast of present-day San Diego. Baranow and O'Cain shared the profit
from more than 600 sea otter skins.
Another reason for the
Russian push into California was the continuing problems with the food
supply of the Russian bases in Alaska. In the inhospitable climate of
Alaska, the Russian settlers had had only meager success in their
attempts to establish an adequate supply situation. The winter of
1805/06 was the turning point. Supply ships could not regularly call at
Novo-Arkhangelsk because of the ongoing Napoleonic Wars in Europe. The
Russian inhabitants of the colony were malnourished and soon suffered
from the deficiency disease scurvy. The first settlers died.
In
this situation, Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov, one of the initiators of the
Russian-American Company and Shelikhov's son-in-law, came to
Novo-Arkhangelsk for inspection. In view of the catastrophic conditions
in the settlement, he decided to act quickly. He bought an American ship
anchored in the port of Novo-Arkhangelsk and in the spring of 1806
sailed to Yerba Buena (the precursor of modern-day San Francisco) to
establish trade contacts with the Spaniards and to buy grain.
In
the Presidio, the Spanish military base in San Francisco Bay, Rezanov
lived for a few weeks with the family of Spanish commander José Dario
Argüello and exchanged Russian tools for grain. Argüello assured him of
his support and wrote to Madrid asking for confirmation of
Russian-Spanish trade contacts. On his return to Novo-Arkhangelsk,
Rezanov urged Baranov to use the "uninhabited tract" of California coast
as a Russian base for fur hunting and for supplying food to Alaska.
The founding of the Russian colony
Between 1808 and
1811 Baranov sent his deputy Kuskov on several reconnaissance trips to
California. In today's Bodega Bay, Kuskov built a first temporary
settlement, which he named after Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev, the then
Russian Foreign Minister. It was from Rumyantsev that Kuskov explored
the surrounding coastline and in 1811 finally settled on a small bay to
the north as a suitable spot for a Russian colony.
There he met
the Kashaya, a branch of the Pomo. The Kashaya lived along a 30-mile
stretch of coastline stretching from the Gualala River in the north to
Duncan's Point, 4 miles south of the mouth of the Russian River. One of
the central points in the territory of the Kashaya was the village of
Metini, in the immediate vicinity of which Fort Ross was to be built.
The food supply in the habitat of the Kashaya was varied, ranging
from mussels, fish and the marine mammals of the Pacific to deer, elk
and a wide range of smaller animals. The menu was supplemented by nuts,
berries, cereals, tubers and roots. The Kashaya harvested sea salt for
their own consumption and for trade. The Kashaya were particularly
skilled at making baskets. In the oral tradition, the first Russians
appear as undersea people. For them they represented only an episode,
because they disappeared again after three decades. Still, as late as
the late 20th century, elders could describe how the Russians threshed
grain by driving horses across the spread stalks laid out on a prepared
clay, later wooden, floor.
In March 1812, Ivan Kuskov began
building the fort with 25 Russians – many of them craftsmen – and around
80 native Alaskans (mostly referred to by the Russians simply as
“Aleutians”) with the construction of the fort. The Russian craftsmen
followed the traditional model in the construction Wooden building of
Siberia.
On August 30th, the name day of Tsar Alexander I, the
completion of the picket fence was celebrated with a special service. In
the north-west and north-east corners of the palisade, wooden towers
overlooked the area around the fort. Flagpoles bearing the flag of the
Russian-American Company were erected in the center of the fort and on
the edge of the bluff facing the Pacific. Inside the palisades stood
blockhouses for the residents of the fort.
Outside the fence, a
windmill, bakery, orchard, cemetery, and farm buildings were built over
the next five years.
A multiethnic community
The population of the
Russian colony was divided into four groups. Within the fort lived the
more privileged Russian employees of the trading company. Descendants of
Russian men and indigenous women lived—as did lower-ranking Russians—in
a village west of the fort. Stretching toward the Pacific was a small
cluster of simple wooden shacks occupied by Alaskan natives recruited by
the Russians to hunt. The Kashaya lived in a small village northeast of
the stockade and in other villages in the mountains above the fort.
The majority of the colony's Alaskan community was Alutiiq, a people
from southwest Alaska. They came from Prince William Sound Bay, the
Kenai Peninsula and Kodiak Island. Files of the Russian-American Company
as well as archaeological finds show that in addition to the Alutiiq,
Unangan, inhabitants of the eastern Aleutians, also lived in Fort Ross.
Both Alutiiq and Unangan were skilled seal and otter hunters and were
initially used only for hunting marine mammals. In later years they were
also used for every form of heavy work. For example, they worked as
cooper, tanner, carpenter, hunter, fisherman and helped move wood in
areas where horses could not be used. In 1821, Ivan Kuskov asked his
superiors in Novo-Arkhangelsk for a special reward for five of his Aleut
workers who had been engaged in logging for years. The Aleutians, who
had previously only been paid in clothes and shoes, now received an
annual salary of 100 rubles.
Relations between Russians and
Indians were remarkably strained compared to those between other
California aliens and Indians. The Indians employed at Fort Ross were
remunerated with flour, meat and clothing, as well as housing. Many of
the Kashaya learned the Russian language, and a number of Russian
expressions found their way into the Native American language.
The Russians had brought almost exclusively male Alaskan natives to Fort
Ross. The resulting lack of women meant that numerous communities formed
between the Aleutians and the native Kashaya. According to a census
conducted by Ivan Kuskov, the founder of Fort Ross, in 1820, out of 56
Kashaya females, 43 lived with Kodiak Island males. The censuses of the
years 1820 and 1821 show that a total of 28 children were born of these
connections.
Religion was an important aspect of the life of the
Russian inhabitants of the colony. Between 1823 and 1824 the officers
and crew of three Russian ships donated money for the construction of a
chapel. This first Orthodox building south of Alaska is first mentioned
for the year 1828 in the voyage report of the French captain Auguste
Duhaut-Cilly (Voyage autour du Monde. Principalement à la Californie et
aux Iles Sandwich, pendant les années 1826, 1827, 1828, et 1829, Paris
1834–1835) documented in writing. The chapel was used by the settlers
for communal prayer, but was never consecrated as a church (simply
because no priest was permanently assigned to it).
In the summer
of 1836, the missionary and priest Ivan Veniaminov, later canonized as
"Saint Innocent of Alaska," visited Fort Ross. During his five-week
stay, he conducted baptisms, weddings, confessions, funerals, and
services. In his travel journal, Veniaminov put the total number of
people living in Fort Ross at 260, 15 percent of whom were Native
Americans who had converted to the Orthodox faith.
As early as 1816, the sea otter population was
declining due to overhunting. From 1820 at the latest, the
Russian-American Company therefore paid more attention to agriculture
and animal husbandry in Fort Ross. However, hopes that the Russian
settlement in California could ensure the food supply in Alaska were not
to be fulfilled.
The reasons for the agricultural failures were
varied. On the one hand, the usable land in the immediate vicinity of
the settlement was too small and not sufficiently fertile. The fog that
was common around Fort Ross also resulted in grain harvests that fell
short of the company's expectations. In addition, the settlers lacked
sufficient knowledge to manage the soil effectively.
Only the
cultivation of fruit and wine showed early successes. The first peach
tree was planted in 1814. Between 1817 and 1818 vines from Peru and more
peach trees from Monterey were added. When the Russians left in 1841,
the orchard planted in the immediate vicinity of the fort included
apple, peach, cherry, pear and grape vines.
Compared to growing
grain, the Russian settlers achieved greater success with animal
husbandry. Livestock grew to thousands of cattle, horses, donkeys, and
sheep over the years, allowing shiploads of salt beef, wool, tallow,
hides, and butter to be shipped to Alaska. In the colony's final years,
Russian livestock numbered 1,700 cattle, 940 horses, and 900 sheep, all
in "excellent condition," according to a report by Frenchman Eugène
Duflot de Mofras.
The forests surrounding Fort Ross provided rich
material for building ships. In 1817 Alexander Baranov, the chief
administrator of the Russian-American Company, sent a shipbuilder from
Novo-Arkhangelsk to Fort Ross. In the following years three brigs and a
schooner were built under his direction. The ships had a payload of
between 160 and 200 tons and cost between 20,000 and 60,000 rubles.
The travel notes of Kyril Khlebnikov, an employee of the
Russian-American Company, give detailed information about shipbuilding
at Fort Ross. Khlebnikov was in Russian America between 1817 and 1832,
and his journals and notes are among the most important sources on the
Russian colony in California. Khlebnikov's reports tell why shipbuilding
at Fort Ross was eventually abandoned. He repeatedly reports problems
with wood rot that settled in the ship's planking. The fungal
infestation eventually assumed such proportions that the larger ships
could only be used in coastal traffic.
The production of other
goods, on the other hand, was crowned with greater success. In
particular, the tanning of animal skins flourished. A tannery was
established on the banks of the small river Fort Ross Creek, where an
Aleutian tanner produced material for shoes, boots and other leather
goods. Production was so successful that by the late 1820s between 70
and 90 tanned hides could be shipped to Novo-Arkhangelsk annually.
In 1814, the settlers built California's first windmill on a hilltop
near the fort; another mill processed more than 30 bushels of grain a
day. A third mill was powered by human and animal muscle power. A
Kashaya legend has it that one of her wives' hair, which was still worn
long at the time, got caught in the gears and she was killed by the
grinder.
In the field of trade, contacts with the Spaniards
living in the south had existed since Resanov's trip to Yerba Buena.
Although the Spaniards were officially forbidden to trade with
foreigners, the Spaniards nevertheless sold grain, fruit trees, cattle
and horses to the Russians, especially in the early years. As the
Russian colony grew, the artisans at Fort Ross increasingly manufactured
goods for which there was a demand on the Spanish side. Thus, the
Russians sold axes, nails, tires, pots and longboats to the Spaniards in
exchange for grain, salt and other raw materials.
With the end of
the Mexican War of Independence in 1821 came an end to trade
restrictions. As a result, the Russians increasingly competed with the
Americans and British. Upkeep of the Russian port at Bodega Bay
partially offset this. Here the Russo-American Company had built storage
facilities, and their port was open to all foreign flags.
During the period that Fort Ross served as a trading
post for the Russian-American Company, a number of explorers and
explorers came to Upper California.[16] They used the fort as a stopover
on their travels and as a starting point for work on zoology, botany,
geography and ethnology.
In 1818, Russian naval officer Vasily
Mikhailovich Golovnin came to Fort Ross as part of his circumnavigation
of the world. In his memoirs, Golownin provides detailed descriptions of
the Indigenous peoples of Northern California and their culture.
In the early 1830s, the then Chief Administrator of the Russian-American
Company, Ferdinand von Wrangel, promoted scholarly study of the flora
and fauna of Russian America. During a voyage in 1833 he also explored
the possibility of expanding the Russian possessions into the hinterland
of Fort Ross. In this context, Wrangel led the first major
anthropological study of indigenous people in the Russian River region
and the area around modern-day Santa Rosa.
Among later visitors
to Fort Ross was the painter Ilya Voznesensky, who spent a year in
Northern California on behalf of the Imperial Russian Academy of
Sciences. Numerous drawings of the fort and the surrounding region come
from his hand. In 1841, Vosnesensky was among the participants in a
reconnaissance voyage that advanced to the area of present-day
Healdsburg. This included the first ascent of Mount Saint Helena, the
highest point in Sonoma County today. In the course of his travels
inland Voznesensky put on an ethnologically significant collection of
indigenous artefacts, which is now kept in the Museum of Anthropology
and Ethnography in Saint Petersburg.
In 1839 the Russian-American Company decided to
abandon Fort Ross. The decline in sea otter populations since the
mid-1830s made fur hunting uneconomic. The agricultural use of the
colony had not brought the desired success. Attempts to engage in
shipbuilding had failed earlier, and the production of industrial
products could not sufficiently compensate for the deficits.
In
addition, pressure from Mexican and American settlers had increased. In
1836 Ferdinand von Wrangel made one last attempt to improve relations
with the young Republic of Mexico. During a visit to Mexico City, he
campaigned for the recognition of Russian territorial claims in Upper
California, but failed when he demanded that Russia diplomatically
recognize the Republic of Mexico in return.
Finally, in April
1839, the Russian Tsar Nicholas I approved the Russian-American
Company's plan to abandon the Fort Ross base and withdraw from
California. Alexander Rotschew, the last commander of Fort Ross, was
commissioned with the resolution.
Rotchev initially entered into
negotiations with the Canadian Hudson's Bay Company, but they rejected
the offer in 1840. Rotchev then turned to the French military attaché in
Mexico City, Eugène Duflot de Mofras. After a visit to Fort Ross, Duflot
also decided against a purchase. As a result, Rotschev received the
order to ask Mexico for an offer. But the Mexicans also refused - partly
because they considered Fort Ross to be on their territory anyway, and
partly because they hoped that the Russians would withdraw from
California without further intervention.
In late 1841, Rotschew
finally made contact with Johann August Sutter, a Californian landowner
of Swiss descent. Sutter agreed to the purchase for the sum of $30,000,
and on January 1, 1842, the last Russian ship set sail from Bodega Bay
bound for Novo-Arkhangelsk. This ended Russia's involvement in
California after around 30 years.
Second half of the 19th century: agriculture and
animal husbandry
After the departure of the Russian-American Company,
a period began when the lands around Fort Ross were mainly used for
farming and ranching. Until 1843, the fort and its lands were
successively managed by three different administrators on behalf of
Johann August Sutter. The fourth administrator, Wilhelm Benitz of Baden
in Germany, initially worked for Sutter before leasing part of Sutter's
lands in the autumn of 1843 together with his partner Ernest Rufus, who
came from Württemberg. In 1849, Benitz and Rufus added the 17,760-acre
northern portion of the former Russian tenure that had been sold to
Manuel Torres by the Mexican government in 1845. After a few years,
Rufus and Benitz separated; Benitz entered into a new partnership with
Charles Meyer – but the property essentially belonged to Benitz from
then on.
Benitz' company proved to be extremely successful. Cargo
logs of the time record a variety of agricultural products shipped from
Fort Ross. Cattle, sheep, horses, hogs, hides, potatoes, apples, oats,
barley, eggs, butter, ducks, and pigeons were sold at markets in Sonoma
and Sacramento on behalf of Benitz. In the production, Benitz used the
indigenous Kashaya, who were obligated by the American government to
work on the ranch for $8 a month. In 1848 there were 162 Kashaya living
around Fort Ross.
With the beginning of the American Civil War,
Benitz increasingly got into economic difficulties. Until 1867 he sold
parts of his property, then he went to Argentina, where he ran cattle on
an estancia. His successors were Irish millwright and lumberjack James
Dixon and Virginia native Charles Snowden Fairfax. Dixon built a mill at
Fort Ross Creek and a large loading dock northwest of the small bay off
Fort Ross. Whether Fairfax ever came to Fort Ross is not known.
Dixon was primarily interested in the forestry use of the lands around
Fort Ross. Having no use for the kashaya, he sent her away. In the early
1870s they moved permanently to their previous winter quarters in
Huckleberry Hills and Abaloneville.
By 1873, Dixon had cleared
much of his property. He sold parts of the lands and settled further
north on the coast. His partner Charles Snowden Fairfax died
unexpectedly in 1869 at the age of 40. After 1873, more of the lands
belonging to Fort Ross were sold to dairy farmers.
George W.
Call, a native of Ohio, bought the largest part, around 7000 acres
including the fort. He followed the same management strategy as Wilhelm
Otto Benitz and focused on agriculture and animal husbandry. Together
with his Chilean wife Mercedes Leiva and their four children, Call
initially lived in the Rotschewhaus, named after Alexander Rotschew, the
last Russian commander of Fort Ross. In 1878, Call built a family home
on the north-west side of the bay and converted the Rotschevhaus into a
hotel. The orthodox chapel built by the Russians was used for weddings,
in winter also as a horse stable or for storing apples. Outside the
picket fence, the Calls built a post office and store. The post office
was operational until 1928, the shop only closing in the early 1960s.
One of George W. Call's most successful ventures was the production
of butter, which was in high demand in San Francisco. Between 1875 and
1899, an average of 20,000 pounds of butter were loaded and shipped
annually from Fort Ross Harbor. In addition, the calls expanded the
orchard planted by the Russians, which is still part of Fort Ross State
Park today.
In 1903, George W. Call sold approximately 21 acres of
his property, including Fort Ross and adjacent buildings, to the
California Historical Landmarks League. In 1906 it was transferred to
the state of California.
Less than a month later, the Fort Ross
buildings were badly damaged in the 1906 earthquake. It took ten years
before money was available for reconstruction.
In 1928, Fort Ross
was listed as one of five historic buildings on the California State
Historic Sites List. In 1936, a small group of Russian-Americans began
publishing newspaper articles on the history of Fort Ross under the name
of the Initiative Group for the Memorialization of Fort Ross. For the
community of Russian-Americans in California, which had grown rapidly
after the February Revolution of 1917, Fort Ross was a special
attraction: it stood for the lost homeland and thus became a focus of
their cultivation of Russian culture. To this day they celebrate
American Independence Day in Fort Ross.
In 1961, Fort Ross was
designated a National Historic Landmark, the highest federal level of
preservation. The following year, Fort Ross State Park was incorporated
as a California state park. On October 15, 1966, Fort Ross was listed on
the National Register of Historic Places. In 1970, the Kuskowhaus was
declared a National Historic Landmark as the only original part of the
building. In 1972, California State Route 1 (also: Highway One), which
until then ran straight through Fort Ross, was relocated to the east.
A Citizens Advisory Committee was established in April 1972, headed
by State Park Director William Penn Mott, Jr. This committee was made up
of local citizens, Russian-Americans and Kashaya Pomo and oversaw the
reconstruction of the fort on a voluntary basis until 1990.
In
July 1985, the new Fort Ross Visitor Center was dedicated. The cost of
$800,000 was funded in part by private donors. With the onset of
glasnost, more and more Russian visitors came to Fort Ross State
Historic Park. At the same time, a period of increased cultural exchange
and scientific engagement with Fort Ross began.
The Palisade
The palisade around Fort Ross has not
been preserved in its original condition. As early as 1833, the Mexican
military commander of Northern California, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo,
wrote that the fort's walls could not withstand a cannon ball of any
caliber by this time large parts of the palisade had fallen into
disrepair. In 1929 the eastern, southern and parts of the western
palisade wall were renewed. After an archaeological dig in 1953, the
western and eastern palisade were completed. Finally, in 1974, the
picket was completely closed again.
The two Towers
Today there
are two wooden towers in the north-west corner of the palisade, facing
the sea, and opposite, in the south-east corner. They are replicas of
the original towers, badly damaged in the 1906 earthquake and later
demolished. The north-west (heptagonal) tower was rebuilt in 1950 and
1951 using Russian carpentry techniques. The condition of the
south-eastern (octagonal) tower dates from 1956/57. Originally, the
towers were equipped with cannons and served to defend the fort.
The old department store
The two-story warehouse (English Old Magasin
) served to store and sell goods. The modern reconstruction of the
building was completed in 2012, making it the youngest structure in the
fort ensemble. During archaeological investigations in 1981, the
excavators came across small glass beads that probably fell through
cracks in the wooden floor, from which archaeologists found the earlier
Location of the building closed. Now housed in the old warehouse, the
exhibit introduces visitors to the history of the fort's trade goods.
The Kuskow House
The so-called "Kuskovhaus" (English Kuskov
House) served as quarters for the first commander, Ivan Alexandrovich
Kuskov. It is one of the first buildings to fall into disrepair after
the Russian-American Company left. Today's Kuskowhaus was reconstructed
in the 20th century according to plans from 1817 and completed in 1983.
The lower floor consists of storage rooms and the upper floor consists
of living quarters. From the upper floor, the residents could watch all
the incoming ships. A room on the upper floor is now modeled after the
study where Russian naturalist Ilya Voznesensky spent his time at Fort
Ross in 1841.
The quarters of the company employees
The
quarters of the company's employees were housed in what is believed to
be one of the first buildings erected within the fort. The modern
reconstruction of the house was completed in 1981. It includes a storage
room, a wood workshop, a metal workshop, a prison room, several
dormitories and a dining room with attached oven for baking bread. The
current furnishing of the rooms does not necessarily reflect the
original use.
The Russian Chapel
The striking Russian wooden
chapel, very unusual for North America, is one of the most frequently
photographed buildings at Fort Ross today. The original building was
erected in 1825 with the own funds of the Russian residents of the fort
and the crew of the ship Kreiser. In the earthquake of 1906 the walls of
the chapel collapsed completely; the roof and the towers were preserved.
In the spring of 1916, the state of California donated $3,000 towards
reconstruction. Wood from a warehouse and from the company employees'
quarters was used for the reconstruction. During the reconstruction,
parts of the architecture were changed, and from 1955 the condition of
the building was finally adjusted to the original condition as part of a
renewed restoration measure.
On October 5, 1970, the chapel was
completely destroyed by fire. The chapel briefly lost its historic
landmark status in 1971-73, but donations from local residents,
Russian-Americans, and government agencies made it possible to rebuild.
The current building was erected in 1973 on the basis of
historical-archaeological studies and reflects - as far as possible -
the original condition of the chapel.
The Rotchev House
The
so-called "Rotschewhaus" (English Rotchev House) is the only building in
Fort Ross that has been largely preserved in its original condition. It
was renovated in 1836 for the last Russian commander of the fort,
Alexander Rotchev, based on an earlier building. In an inventory from
1841 it is referred to as the "new commander's house" - presumably to
distinguish it from the Kuskowhaus or "old commander's house".
In
Rotchev's time the house was comfortably furnished. In a report from
1841, the French Eugène Duflot de Mofras counts a selected library,
French wines, a piano and a Mozart score among the furnishings. All this
disappeared with the withdrawal of the Russians in 1841/42.