At their closest Alaska and Russia are 2.5 miles apart – the distance between Little Diomede Island, Alaska, and Big Diomede Island, Russia. The two islands straddle the U.S.-Russian maritime border in the middle of the Bering Strait. In mid-winter, when the Bering Strait freezes, it is possible to walk between the two islands – from American to Russia, from today to tomorrow, or from Russia to the United States, from today to yesterday. It is even possible to stand on the frozen Bering Strait, with one foot in America and one foot in Russia, straddling the frontiers of distant boundaries and time travel. But don’t try it. You can be taken into custody by border guards. And the frozen Bering Strait can have huge ice ridges as well as open holes of water (polynyas). 55 miles separate the Alaska and Russian mainland at the point where Alaska’s Seward Peninsula and Russia’s Chukotka Peninsula reach out toward each other. Alaskan and Russian Eskimos travel by walrus skin boat between the Alaska villages on St. Lawrence Island and the Chukotka villages near Provideniya. The prevailing theory is that America was first peopled by a land migration across the Bering Strait more than 10,000 years ago, when sea levels dropped in the last ice age leaving a wide swath of land – Beringia or the Bering Land Bridge – connecting the Asia and American continents. The Bering Strait has long served as a lure for those seeking to pursue geographic, travel, cultural and even political adventures that span one of the world’s most out-of-the-way boundaries. People have tried to cross the Bering Strait – and some have succeeded – by walking, swimming, wind-surfing, hot air balloon, skiing, dog sled, kayak and even, unbelievably, by driving (and failing). Gennady Gerasimov, Gorbachev’s spokesman, in one of his many visits to Alaska, once stood on Little Diomede Island in the middle of the Bering Strait, and with great emotion, remarked on being able to stand on American soil and see the Motherland. The 150 residents of Little Diomede Island, Alaskan Eskimos and American citizens, live on a slope that faces west, which means that from their homes, they cannot see Alaska and the United States, but on a clear day, they can see Big Diomede Island and the Russian mainland.

In this neck of the tundra, we call it the Ice Curtain. During the Cold War era, people routinely referred to the "Iron Curtain" as the barrier between East and West, dividing the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., separating and isolating the Soviet bloc in its own sphere. While Washington and Moscow faced off across the Atlantic, Alaskans and Russians eyed each other across the Bering Strait, the Bering Sea and the North Pacific. And while politicians focused on dismantling the Berlin Wall and taking down the Iron Curtain, the focus among many in Alaska and the Russian Far East was to melt the Ice Curtain. In World War II, when the U.S. and Russia were allied, Alaska served as the jumping off point for war planes heading to help fight the Nazis on the eastern front. The so-called Alaska-Siberia Lend-Lease Program delivered thousands of aircraft through Alaska and Siberia to the war front. Now, 60 years later, the Alaska-Siberia Research Center plans monuments to this effort. Researchers have turned up evidence that the Washington was just as willing to close the Bering Strait border as Moscow in a kind of U.S.-Russian consensus in 1948 to cut off travel, which involved primarily Native peoples, at the Cold War created the Ice Curtain divide. Many people seem surprised and even incredulous to learn that the United States and Russia share a common border. No direct border crossing exists nor is any permitted. Travelers must leave one country and enter the other at established points of entry in Alaska and the Russian Far East. Ever since the Ice Curtain began to melt in the last few years of the Soviet era under Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, every Alaska governor and state administration, regardless of political affiliation, has sought to develop normal cross-border cooperation and establish political ties. Alaska governors, state officials and legislators have almost certainly made more trips to Russia than their counterparts from other states and have also hosted many delegations from the Russian Far East. The only American and only Russian citizens who may travel back and forth across the U.S.-Russian Bering Strait border without visas are the permanent Native residents of the Bering Strait region. Eligible residents must have a special stamp or insert in their passports.

Russian explorers were the first Europeans to set foot in Alaska, controlling Alaska as a trading colony for the czar, until 1867, when the United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, 2 cents per acre. The deal arranged by U.S. Secretary of State William Seward was ridiculed by many as "Seward’s Folly" and Alaska was dubbed "Seward’s Icebox." Today in Alaska, you can buy replicas of the 1867 purchase agreement and the $7.2 million check (written in 1868, apparently of a cash flow problem in Washington). Alaska oil production can generate more revenue to the public and private sector in a single day than the entire purchase price of Alaska. Alaska celebrates two official state holidays – both marking the 1867 purchase. The last Monday in March recognizes the March 30, 1867 treaty signing. October 18 marks the anniversary of the formal transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States, when the Russian flag came down in the Russian-American capital Sitka and the American flag went up – a ceremony re-enacted every year on this holiday. State offices and banks close on these holidays. Russians brought Russian Orthodoxy to Alaska, and in many Native communities, that remains the faith. The Alaska diocese is unique among Eastern Orthodox Churches in American to adhere to the old Julian calendar and, along with the Moscow-based church, celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7. Russian place names are common throughout Alaska. Even the name "Alaska" comes from the name the Russians heard the Aleuts use to call the land. Many Aleut people have Russian surnames as a result of intermarriage in colonial times. Some Alaska Native languages adopted Russian words into their languages. Russian churches, many of them restored or rebuilt, still stand in places where Russians settled, including the Russian administrative buildings in the former capital Sitka.

The Siberian Yupik Eskimos of Alaska and Russia are ethnic kin who speak the same language, Siberian Yupik. More than just ethnic kin, there are Siberian Yupik families with relatives on both sides of the border. Many Alaska Siberian Yupiks can trace their ancestry back to Russia. Siberian Yupiks live in Alaska primarily on St. Lawrence Island in the towns of Gambell and Savoonga and in other western Alaska coastal communities. Russia’s Siberian Yupiks live on the Chukotka Peninsula, primarily in Sireniki and New Chaplino and other towns. The only Aleuts in the world live in the United States and Russia along the arc of the Aleutian archipelago stretching from Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula and Komandorsky Islands to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, Kodiak Island, the Alaska Peninsula and parts of southern coastal Alaska. Only in recent years have Alaskan and Russian Aleuts restored contacts and begun to embark on cooperation projects. Alaska has a half dozen communities of Old Believers, an offshoot of Russian Orthodoxy that appears to be right out of 19^th century Russia. Alaska’s Old Believers took a circuitous route to Alaska, often through China or South America or elsewhere on the West Coast, before finding a climate and conditions similar to what they or their ancestors left behind in Siberia and the isolation and freedom to live as they like.

The Russian czar started trade with Alaska in the mid-18^th century and commissioned the Russian America Company in 1799 as the exclusive trading agent. In colonial days, trade was based on furs, chiefly sea otter and fur seal pelts, and some of this commerce was based on forced labor imposed by the Russian traders on the Aleuts. Companies exist today in Alaska that can trade their roots back to the Russian America Co. Early trade with Russia was trade in the literal sense. Barter has long figured into Alaska commerce with Russia. And in a remarkable feat of ingenuity and practicality, Alaska even found a way to develop a unique form of Russian commerce in the late Soviet period. When Russians began traveling from Chukotka to Nome in the late 1980s, they had no "hard currency" and the ruble then, as now, was not convertible on international currency markets outside the country. So in order to accommodate the Russians, some entrepreneurial Nome businesses agreed to accept Russian rubles on a 1=1 basis with the dollar. Then, in order to recoup their losses by accepting what amounted to useless rubles, the participating Nome businesses would sell their rubles to American tourists who might not ever get any closer to Russian soil than Nome. Nome business taking part in this novel transaction would post signs in their windows in Russian stating their willingness to accept rubles. Many, but not all, managed to sell the rubles to willing buyers and restore their earnings. Alaska-Russian trade has caught up with the times and much of it involves resource development. Companies involve in arctic and sub-arctic development in Alaska, such as oil production and mining, are particularly interested working in similar areas of the Russian Far East. Although Alaska prides itself on its home-grown northern culture and crafts, steeped in Native Alaskan traditions, there is a strong Russian flavor to much of the souvenir and crafts trade in Alaska cities frequented by tourists. Anchorage has a half dozen Russian crafts stores and many more also sell Russian souvenirs and items evoking the Alaska-Russian ties. Even smaller towns like Sitka, Seward and Juneau have businesses specializing in Russian goods. And Nome even has a Chukotka-Alaska Trading Co. Every year, Alaska holds a conference, symposium and presentations on doing business in the Russian Far East.

Russian students from throughout the Russian Far East study at the University of Alaska – for reduced tuition, paying the same rate charged to Alaska residents. University of Alaska policy allows residents of Alaska sister cities and sister regions to pay resident tuition rates to attend the university. It is unlikely that many of these Russian Far East students would be able to attend university in Alaska without this special break. Alaska has sister relations with a dozen Russian Far East cities and regions. It is believed that Alaska has more Russian students at its university campuses than any college in the United States. The University of Alaska has an American Russian Center based in Anchorage with branch campuses in a half dozen Russian Far East locations to provide basic business courses aimed at creating a capitalist class of entrepreneurs with practical business skills. A branch of the University of Alaska that specializes in training workers for the oil and gas and mining industries, the Mining and Petroleum Training Service, has trained hundreds of Russian oil field workers in Alaska and, with help from USAID, the Alaska private sector and the Russian Academy of Sciences, has launched the Sakhalin Alaska College technical training school in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Alaska high schools, which have Russian studies and exchange programs, stage a Russian academic Olympiad every year.

Alaska has been the biggest single source of humanitarian aid flowing into the Russian Far East, particularly during recent hard winters marked by power outages and shortages. Grassroots campaigns by citizen groups, charities, churches, governments, businesses and many individuals have been behind the goodwill efforts. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and similar benefactors have provided support for Alaska government agencies, organizations and businesses to reinforce the burgeoning democratic institutions and market economy built up in the Russian Far East through technical assistance from Alaska.

Cities and towns in Alaska and the Russian Far East are closer to each other than they are to their own national capitals. Russia governed Alaska as a colony for almost as long as the United States has now governed Alaska as a possession, territory and state. Alaska serves as the exclusive U.S. gateway for flights between the Russian Far East and the United States. Every summer, Bering Strait and Bering Sea adventure cruises stop at ports in Alaska and the Russian Far East. Alaska has translated its state constitution, government documents and key laws into Russian to share with Russian Far East regions, governments and dumas (legislatures). Among the historical artifacts in the State Capitol and the Governor’s House are samovars, portraits of the Russian czar and other items that evoke the Russian heritage. Much of the flora and fauna and geology in Alaska are similar to the Russian Far East and eastern Siberia. Scientists do joint volcano research since Alaska and Kamchatka form the northern arc of the so-called Ring of Fire. Alaska and Russia conduct cooperative research and management of species such as polar bears, walrus and whales. Exhibits in museums of Alaska, Siberia and the Russian Far East often bear great similarities. Hotlines connect Alaska and the Russian Far East. There has been a direct link for emergency air traffic communications ever since the Soviets shot down of Korean Airlines Flight #007 in Russian air space en route from Anchorage to Seoul in 1983. Alaska-based air traffic controllers share communications links with their counterparts on Russia’s east coast. After 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, communications were established between the Alaska Dept. of Environmental Conservation and the Russian nuclear power station across the Bering Strait in Bilibino, Chukotka.

The State of Alaska maintains a full-time staff position for dealing with Russian trade and Alaska-Russian Far East affairs.