Скачать или смотреть RUSSIANS HAVE LANDED! 2 Russians sailed to Alaska to escape war, Oct 2022.

BREAKING NEWS: OCT 3, 2022: Russians Landed In Alaska!

TRANSCRIPT:
Russia and Alaska are very close to each other. That fact was proven in an amazing fashion this week when 2 Russian men fled their country’s war in a small boat and landed in Alaska. We’ve discussed how close Russia and Alaska are before, but I assume most of you tune me out like my wife does, so to sum up: Russia and Alaska are separated by a relatively small bit of ocean called the Bering Sea – at their closest point, their coasts are only about 55 miles apart from each other. If you include islands, they’re actually just 2.5 miles apart (you can walk across from the US island to the Russian island in winter, and you cross the international date line so you basically time travel too – its a whole other thing I covered in one of my first videos).

So about the Russians who landed in Alaska this week. They sailed from very far eastern Russia – an area called Chukotka - across the Bering Sea to St. Lawrence Island, a remote Alaskan island that’s about 50 miles from the nearest Russian coast, seeking asylum from conscription in the Ukraine War. It’s the first time that we know of anyone using this route to seek asylum in this war, and one of very few instances in our history. Prior to World War 2, many US islands in the Bering sea were on relatively friendly terms with their neighbor islands on the Russian side – which makes sense since the indigenous populations that live here are closely connected and never had those borders anyway. But since the second world war, Russia moved most of their islanders to mainland Russia and travel across the Bering Sea border is very rare. It’s very isolated, very cold, and very dangerous. (have you ever seen Deadliest Catch? That’s just a small portion of the Bering Sea).

The Russian nationals landed in the small town of Gambell, on St Lawrence Island, an American indigenous community of about 600 people. It’s not the first time the people of Gambell have had a surprise Russian encounter. In a nice story from the cold war, a Soviet plane emergency landed in Gambell in 1974. The Soviets requested refueling, and the US Army actually flew out fuel to help. The next day the plane took off from Gambell, and it dipped its wings over the island in a gesture of thanks before leaving back to Russia. That’s true!

The Russians that landed there this week reportedly came from a small town here, though its not clear if they sailed from there, which is about 300 miles away, or if they traveled by land to a closer point. They were reportedly flown to Anchorage where they are being vetted by Department of Homeland Security.

American politicians took this opportunity to call for greater protection of the Alaskan coast, but, given this route’s perilous and unpredictable nature, its unlikely that we’ll start seeing hordes of Russians coming through this way. But hey you never know...

Thanks For Exploring With Me. -Map Nerd

#russian #geography #alaska #asylum #ukrainewar #bering