Russians in Hawaii
Let's go back into 1804 when Russians first arrived to Hawaii on ships associated with the Russian-American Fur Trading Company stationed in Sitka, Alaska, to obtain fruits, vegetables and meat from their Hawaiian neighbors in exchange for sea otter skins. Commander of the ship Neva, Captain Yury Lisyansky, and his German emissary Dr. Georg Anton Sheffer, considered colonizing Hawaii on behalf of Czar Alexander I by assisting Kaumaualii, the ruler of Kauai, to attempt to overthrow King Kamehameha I who had just recently united the Hawaiian Islands. They established a friendship with Kaumaualii in 1815 and built settlements including Fort Alexander and the substantial Fort Elisabeth, named so to honor Great Russian Czarina Elizabeth (Elizaveta). Czar Alexander I later instructed his Russian representatives in Hawaii to limit their work to peaceful commercial relations with the Island Kingdom.
Russian Fort Elisabeth is situated next to the very same strategic shore point where Waimea River flows into Pacific Ocean and where English Captain James Cook had stepped on Hawaiian soil twenty-eight years earlier, in 1776. According to widely accepted version, Captain Cook was greeted as God by local native tribe, but had never sailed back home due to a fatal and rude mistake of his sailor.
Unlike Captain Cook's crew, Russians quickly gained trust and obtained much needed assistance from local people. In fact, Russian Fort Elisabeth was gratefully built by Hawaiians as an invitation to Neva and its crew to stay on Kauai.
The ruins of Fort Elisabeth (built in 1816-1817) still survive on Kauai today as a beautiful Russian Fort Elisabeth State Historical Park visited by thousands of tourists each year. An amazing part of great Hawaiian history with a hint of mysterious Russian spirit is kept safely and peacefully among its walls, while we are left wondering on whether Russian blood possibly made its way through the oceans and centuries contributing to various talents and natural graceful beauty of Hawaiian people.
When standing there quietly, you would probably feel those invisible but tight strings of friendship and deep appreciation coming from Russia all the way to Kauai and back.
Unusually exciting and romantic interpretation of historic events surrounding peaceful Fort Elisabeth may be found in a novel by Darwin Teilhet, Russian Flag Over Hawaii, The Mission of Jeffery Tolamy (Tales of the Pacific, Mutual Publishing of Honolulu 1986).
Additional evidence of the long-lasting relationship between Hawaii and Russia are found at `Iolani Palace, Honolulu, where King David Kalākaua and Queen Liliʻuokalani once resided. Personally gifted portraits of Russian Czar Alexander and Russian Admiral Kutuzov are proudly dispayed in a tasteful contemporary setting of Royal Dining Room among cherished images of Hawaiian and European royalty. Russian honorary strips with traditional imperial crosses that were once presented to Hawaiian Royal Family are kept among the most valuable monarchic belongings at the `Iolani Palace museum.
