Fort Ross - Salt Point Newsletter

Published by the Fort Ross Interpretive Association

a California State Park Cooperating Association
SUMMER 2009
www.fortrossinterpretive.org

Cultural Heritage Day Salt Point

Fort Ross Celebration
of Russian America 1812-1841 Lynn Hay Rudy’s long awaited book The Old Salt Point
Township, Sonoma County, California, 1841-1941 is at
July 25, 2009 the printer and will soon be available at the Fort Ross
10:00 am to 5:00 pm museum bookstore. A special event is planned for Sunday
August 9, at 4 pm at Fort Ross. The author will present
some introductory remarks on her book and a festive
booksigning will follow.

At the end of July our beloved Ranger Karen Broderick

From 1812 to 1841 Russian American Company Settlement
Ross was home to a unique blend of cultural groups—
Russians, Creoles, Native Alaskans, and Kashaya and
Coast Miwok Native Californians. On Cultural Heritage
Day we celebrate the cultural diversity of these Fort Ross
inhabitants.
Demonstrations will include blacksmithing, spinning,
needlework, storytelling, metalworking, woodworking,
ropemaking, and historic firearm interpretation. Visitors
are welcome to join in song, dance and craft activities.
10:00 Gates open to the fort.
12:00 Musket and cannon demonstration.
5:00 Gates close.
and Lifeguard Oshin McNulty will retire from active state
park service and move to the Hood River area in Oregon,
where they are building a new home. Karen recently spoke
of the unique parks sensibility at Salt Point, a warm spirit
of community helping community which is rare in many
other larger systems. Karen cited examples of regional
Sonoma County Park Rangers, California Highway
Patrol, Fish & Game wardens, Sonoma County Sheriffs all
coming together and helping one another. This spirit of
protecting visitors and park resources with compassion,
professionalism, kindness and humor exemplifies Osh
and Karen’s years of service to the parks. Many of these
relationships and friendships are long standing, former
Salt Point Superintendent Heidi Horvitz, Osh and Karen
all met at the Peace Officer Academy at the beginning of
their careers with state parks. All the staff at Salt Point
State Park join together to wish Osh and Karen the very
best of in their new life. They will be deeply missed.
Junior Ranger Programs and interpretive hikes are ongoing every
Saturday at Salt Point State Park through Labor Day, please call
707 847 3221 for specific times.
The Salt Point Visitor Center, at Gerstle Cove, is open every weekend
from 10 am to 3pm, staffed by volunteers.
New volunteers warmly welcome!

Help Save Our Parks!

As this newsletter is published, the state of California State Parks is uncertain. To balance the California budget it has
been proposed that 220 State Parks be closed, including Fort Ross. The FRIA Board and staff have embarked on a
letter-writing campaign to legislators. FRIA members can help by contacting their local legislators.

The California State Parks Foundation at http://ga3.org/calparks/home.html is doing a wonderful job of providing
information on the budget crisis, day-to-day news updates, and lists of legislators to contact. We hope that every-
one will visit this website and take action to save our parks!
2
 The Decembrists
by James R. Gibson
This article was written for the Rotchev House Museum
Catalog scheduled to be printed in the spring of 2010.
Alexander Rotchev was a contemporary and quite possibly
a sympathizer of the Decembrists, the coterie of idealistic
army officers whose indecisive attempt at a coup d’état
on Senate Square in St. Petersburg was easily and bloodily
crushed on 14/26 December 1825, the day when the oath
of loyalty to the new tsar, Nicholas I, was to be taken.
Five ringleaders were hanged, thirty-one were sentenced
to penal servitude, and ninety others were exiled, chiefly
to Siberia.
Most of the Decembrists were quite young, indeed, some
were still adolescents; most were very well educated
and well traveled and therefore familiar with the new
Russian literature of moral and social protest (Radishchev
and Pushkin, for example) and with the political and
social changes in Western Europe and their philosophical
underpinnings (romanticism, idealism); most were active
members of one or more of the diverse secret political
societies that had arisen in the wake of the Napoleonic
Wars under the influence of Freemasonry; most belonged
to the aristocracy, whose privileges enabled their activities;
and most were ranking soldiers (79 percent of the 579
individuals investigated by the emperor’s tribunal were
army personnel) and therefore capable of leading an
uprising.
Their desire for change was stimulated by economic
stagnation in Russia (the country was virtually bankrupt
by 1825), and they were frustrated by Alexander I’s
increasing conservatism and mysticism during the last half
of his reign. They hoped for better from the childless
Alexander’s younger brother, Constantine, who was
supposedly liberal in outlook; he, however, declined the
succession, which then went to the youngest brother,
Nicholas, a lacklustre martinet. Nicholas I responded
to the conspiracy with intense reaction, becoming the
“gendarme of Europe” in foreign affairs and the upholder
of “Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality” in domestic
matters, ruling with an iron hand by means of his “Third
Section” (secret police).
The Russian-American Company felt this chill, for several
of the Decembrists had been closely associated with it,
especially Kondraty Ryleyev, the driving force behind
the radical Northern Society and one of the executed
ringleaders. A romantic poet, he would have been known
C perhaps even personally C to Rotchev, who was likewise
an aspiring writer. At the time of his arrest Ryleyev lived
and worked at the company’s St. Petersburg headquarters
on the Moika Canal near the Blue Bridge, where he
served as its office manager from the beginning of 1824.
Admiral Nikolay Mordvinov, the company’s patron and
a popular liberal figure, had offered him the well-paid
position (a salary and ten shares plus a free flat for him
and his wife and two children). Two other members of
the Northern Society lodged at the company’s building,
and meetings of the plotters were held there. During
the inquisition following the abortive uprising, the tsar
asked a suspect where he worked, and when the latter
replied “At the Russian-American Company,” Nicholas I
snorted “And that’s a fine company you have assembled
there.” The late Soviet historian, Semyon Okun, wrote
that No. 72 on the Moika became “a sort of conspirators’
club” and that to frequent it was to be “identified with
actual participation in the conspiracy.” Ryleyev and
other future Decembrists also attended soirées given by
Ivan Prokofyev, one of the company’s directors; Nikolay
Kusov, another director, and a well-known progressive,
also attended. The company’s Board of Directors thought
so highly of Ryleyev’s services that they gave him an
expensive raccoon coat with a beaver collar (valued at
700 rubles), and after his arrest they paid his debts (but
took back his shares) and let his wife remain in the flat.
Another convicted conspirator, Dmitry Zavalishin, whose
initial death sentence was commuted to hard labor in
Siberia, visited Russian America and Alta California
in 1823 as a midshipman on the Kreiser and was even
considered for the post of manager of Ross Counter (and
another Decembrist, Batenkov, was slated to succeed
Governor Muravyov at Sitka). Also, Zavalishin advocated
aggressive Russian expansion on both sides of the North
Pacific and, like Ryleyev, openly criticized Russia’s
concessions under the American-Russian Convention of
1825 (Ryleyev even petitioned the Minister of Finance
on this matter). No other Decembrist showed as much
interest in the company and its colonies or wrote as much
about them as Zavalishin, a prolific writer (and the most
long-lived of the Decembrists).
Other Decembrists with a connection to the Russian-
American Company included Mikhail von Kyukhelbeker
(the younger brother of a prominent poet), who in 1821
had sailed to Russian America and Alta California as a
lieutenant aboard the Apollon, and Vladimir Romanov,
who had voyaged to Alta California and Russian America
in 1820-22 as a lieutenant on the Kutuzov; the former
was sentenced to hard labor in Eastern Siberia and the
latter, a friend of Rylyev, was temporarily disgraced.
Right after the insurrection, Director Prokofyev, fearing
his own and the company’s implication in the conspiracy,
burned all of the incriminating documents. But the trials
clearly revealed the close links, and the Russian-American
Company fell out of royal favor and lost imperial support
3
 for projects such as Governor Wrangell’s proposal to win
recognition of the legitimacy of Russian California from
the Mexican Republic, whose independence Nicholas I
refused to countenance.
What explains the relationship between the company and
the Decembrists? For one thing, the rebels were, as Raeff
says, “in the tradition of service to country and people in
which the eighteenth-century elite had been raised,” and
this tradition, combined with post-Napoleonic nationalist
sentiment, prompted them to visit, study, and promote
the various regions of the empire, particularly the lesser
known and lesser developed parts, chiefly Siberia and
Russian America.
In addition, as Raeff also notes, the Decembrists were
in the tradition, too, of the Russian intelligentsia, who
tended to discover their own country only after first
discovering others C usually European states C and then
drawing comparisons (usually unfavorable) with Russia
(and then urging reforms). So they were eager to travel
abroad to sample foreign lands and peoples, and such
opportunities were made readily available by the round-
the-world voyages of both the Russian navy (from l803)
and the Russian-American Company, as well as the latter’s
foreign dealings.
Furthermore, the Decembrists may have been attracted to
the company insofar as it represented what they believed
the stagnant Russian economy needed C progressive
economic institutions, in this case, corporate enterprise.
Moreover, the firm’s annual meetings of shareholders
appealed to Zavalishin, at least, because they offered
some degree of “freedom and equality” C freedom to
participate in the unrestricted economic and even political
discussions and equality in voting, which was dependent
upon one’s number of shares, not upon rank or status,
so that “the merchant was upon the same footing as the
important courtier or the celebrated grandee.” Finally,
the interest of the Decembrists in the company was
motivated by the desire to strengthen ties with disaffected
members of the merchant class. Both foreign and domestic
trade had slumped in the second half of Alexander I’s
reign, causing widespread mercantile discontent that
the Decembrists wanted to exploit. Batenkov told the
tribunal that “More often than anywhere else I used to
go to the merchants’ houses, and inasmuch as that class
is generally dissatisfied with the restrictive regulations on
commerce, associating with them acted as an incitement
to the desire for a change.”
But under Nicholas I there was to be little change and
much reaction until his death thirty years after the
Decembrist rebellion. The atmosphere for Rotchev was
much less repressive in Russian California, where, as
a saying went, “God is high above and the Tsar is far
away,” and much change was afoot next door in Alta
California, where events would soon help bring an end
to Ross Counter itself.~
4 qualify as real history. I hope you enjoy its telling.~
The Old Salt Point Township
By Lynn Hay Rudy
Excerpts from the Introcuction.
Available in the Fort Ross Bookstore in July!
. . . From its beginning, by 1859, the Salt Point Township
was the farthest west and most northern part of Sonoma
County. It ran—loosely—from the mouth of the Gualala
River south to the mouth of the Russian River; from the
Pacific Ocean east to past King Ridge. Although its lines
may have been a bit artifical and its edges blurred, a rural
lifestyle was here long ago defined. As historical accounts
must have territorial limits, I have chosen the boundaries
of this old township for my story. Sonoma was one of the
state’s original counties in 1850. When California’s first U.
S. Census was taken that year, there were only 560 (white)
people in the whole county. There was no need of town-
ships, and no recognizable resident of the future Salt Point
Township was counted. By 1860, the next Census year, ten
townships had been established, including this one. Some
were in the fertile valleys, and were heavily populated, but
in Salt Point Township there were only about fifty Anglo
families. The Indian population was not counted in the
Census.
Today’s visitors often think of the Sonoma coast as a lonely
and isolated place. Perhaps it is, compared to the urban
scene, but it is much more densely populated now than
it has ever been in its “American” period. The reason is
simple: Settlers were few because of the terrain—a mass
of steep hills, very little tillable soil, bordered by a rocky
coastline, a rough sea with poor harbors, and two non-navi-
gable rivers. Homesteaders headed instead for the deep,
plowable lands of the interior. This part of the world was
good for fishing, for livestock raising, a little dairying and
fruit raising, and perhaps some grain- and haygrowing.
The people who used the land for these things tended to
stay. Some of their descendants are still here.
It wasn’t long, of course, before entrepreneurs found the
fine timber, and even a bit of stone to be quarried; both
activities were well established by the 1850s. But these are
finite (rock) or at least cyclical industries. People came in
droves, worked hard, and hauled off the treasure; most of
them left when the resources were gone or no longer profit-
able. The last big timber cutting was in the 1940s and ‘50s;
sheep grazing has almost vanished in the last forty years.
The number of residents who have made a living from the
land has essentially dropped to zero. A new era began a full
century after the Russians left; World War II was about to
begin. This was a good place to end our story.
Life was different and “modern” when the war ended in
1945. My intention is to give a picture of the Old Days before
they are totally forgotten. Called the Pioneer Period or the
Ranch Era by some, these days are now distant enough to
 THE SEARCH FOR ROTCHEV HOUSE EXHIBITS
In late April two FRIA staff members, with a Rotchev
House advisor, departed on a journey to research and
contract for the construction of Rotchev House Museum
exhibits. The travel and exhibit displays have been funded
by important grants from the National Endowment for
the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library
Services. The grant administrator, Sarjan Holt, and the
project director, Lyn Kalani, were accompanied by
research and historic furnishings advisor John Middleton.
In St. Petersburg the group was joined by history advisor
James Gibson and project translator Natalia Gubina. The
two Moscow architects who designed the exhibits, Elena
Klimkova and Igor Medvedev, planned to join the group
in St. Petersburg. They had to stay in Moscow during this
period, but advised on questions of exhibit construction
by email.
After contacting the sources provided by the National Park
Service for exhibit makers in the US, appointments had
been scheduled with museums in Russia and stanbul. The
search was on for the highest quality historic reproduction
exhibit displays at prices supported by the granting
agencies. The group traveled first to İstanbul, Turkey, then
to St. Petersburg, Russia, and then back to İstanbul for
meetings with museum restoration departments, restorers
and cabinet makers, and to research historic materials and
techniques. They were also shopping for exhibit objects
funded by private donors. The grant administrator’s
knowledge of the Turkish language and customs, and the
research advisor’s knowledge of Russian language and
culture, were essential in making this a very successful
and productive trip! All exhibit makers have now signed
contracts and started construction; exhibits are scheduled
to arrive at Fort Ross by December 2009. A conference
of all exhibit advisors will determine final installation, and
the Rotchev House Museum opening is scheduled for late
spring, 2010.
THE TURKISH CONNECTION
During the Sitka Castle Hill archaeological excavations in
1998 curious artifacts were unearthed from the site at the
base of Castle Hill. Several Turkish chibouks (tobacco pipes)
were found among the more numerous examples of typical
northern European clay pipes. This prompted a closer look
at interior illustrations from European and Asian Russia to
see if this unusual feature was consistent with examples
of daily life in either St. Petersburg or Siberia. What we
found was amazing. With just the example of the chibouk
to begin with, we discovered a whole range of Ottoman
influences on Russian fashion reaching back to Peter the
Great’s first encounters with the Ottoman Empire in the
Volga Basin and the Black Sea in the early 18th century.
While the continuous battles and conquests of the 18th and
19th centuries between Russia and Turkey are mostly dwelt
upon, less regard is given to the cross-cultural influences
these two empires shared.
We not only began to notice chibouks showing up in
paintings of every-day life (in fact it was the dominant
type of tobacco pipe which appeared in Russian paintings
of the first half of the 19th century) but found examples of
Turkish fashion, architecture, textiles, and interior design
among interiors found not only in the capitol, but in
provinces as far afield as Siberia. And of course, now, in
Russian America also.
This “Turkish connection” had an unexpected benefit for
our travels too. In St. Petersburg we were directed by one
of the country’s leading experts on interior furnishings to
a high-end interior fabric salon to find the cloth needed
for the upholstery for the furniture we were ordering
for the Rotchev House. We poured over sample books,
taking notes and recording the fabulously high prices
before noticing that all the samples came from European
manufacturers, not Russian, and some were even based
upon Turkish designs. So instead we decided to go to
the source, as had the Russians in the early 19th century;
took our notes, photographs, and research from Russian
Museums to the textile centers of İstanbul, where we found
not only closer matches to the fabrics from the Russian
museum collections (in some cases the exact fabric) but at
prices about one-tenth of the cost of the European imports
available in St. Petersburg.
AN ACCOUNT OF OUR TRIP:
[More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About Shopping
For The Rotchev House Museum — Excerpts from the full
report prepared for the National Endowment. Please see
the Rotchev House page at www.fortrossinterpretive.org
for all the details.]
Sunday April 26 — Arrival in İstanbul. We checked into
the Spectra Hotel, formerly an old Ottoman home in the
historic heart of İstanbul . . .
View of the Blue Mosque from the Spectra
Monday April 27 — Meeting with MOB, an international
furniture construction company in İstanbul. We left the
project architectural plans (provided by advisors Elena
Klimkova and Igor Medvedev) with them. They agreed
to send us a bid.
Then we visited the antique shops in Çukurcuma . . .
Tuesday April 28 — On the recommendation of Hüsnü
Kurt, the director of the restoration department at
Dolmabahçe Palace, we met with a team of imperial
5
 palace restorers headed by architect Umut Kukaracı. We enthusiastic man, and he believes in the importance of the
gathered at an imperial hunting mansion, Beykoz Kasrı, naval museum’s involvement with Fort Ross. He agreed
which is being restored, where we observed restoration to have us meet the restorers at the museum to discuss
technique . . . While we discussed the furnishings, we were constructing a replica of a bookcase in their collection
treated to a fabulous authentic Turkish lunch at a picnic which had traveled to Russian America. Vadim, head of
table on the grounds overlooking the Bosphorus. We left the restoration department, and Nikanor, restorer and
the exhibit plans for them to bid on . . . cabinet maker, joined our meeting. We were treated
Wednesday April 29 — Went to İMÇ to review the to a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum collections
upholstery and drapery . . . Then we hiked up winding department by Vadim . . .
streets past the Süleymaniye Mosque to the Covered
Bazaar (İstanbul’s trading center built in 1455, one of the
largest covered markets in the world with some 3500
shops) to research fabric sources, prices, and a variety of
exhibit objects . . .
Thursday April 30 — We met with the head of the
restoration department, Hüsnü Kurt, at Dolmabahçe
palace, who took us to Yıldız Palace to tour the restoration
workshops of all the imperial palaces and mansions. We had
a private tour of the inlay, marquetry, furniture restoration,
lathe, upholstery and carpet weaving workshops set up
150 years ago. We saw cloth being woven similar to the
textiles we were seeking for Rotchev House exhibits.
The Princess and the Pipe: We
visited Princess Bâlâ, the great
granddaughter of the Ottoman
Sultan Reşit, who lives on the The Central Naval Museum: Sarjan Holt, Andrey Lyalin,
Bosphorus in her mansion full Jim Gibson, Lyn Kalani, and Natalia Gubina.
of collected antiques. She gave
The Tophane Pipe us the names of her antique The next appointment that day was at Tsarskoye Selo State
dealers in the Çukurcuma and Tophane area and followed Museum, the summer palace of Catherine I, Elizabeth I
up on the chibouk that started the Turkish connection. and Catherine the Great. We met with Deputy Director
We happened to find one dealer with a box of old pipe of Research Iraida Bott and Public Relations Director Olga
fragments, which had been dug out of his courtyard. In Filimonova. Ms. Bott is also the leading expert on early
the 19th century, the courtyard had been one of the kilns nineteenth century Russian furniture. She approved the
that produced the famous Tophane red-clay pipes for the project’s furniture drawings, showed us old books on
Ottoman Empire. When we explained to him the strange furniture, added her input, and gave us recommendations
and convoluted world of trade, politics, and international of the fabric and runner sources in St. Petersburg used by
intrigue, and how the type of pipe produced in his Tsarskoye Selo. She would ask the museum restorers to give
backyard might end up in Russian-America, he graciously us bids on the exhibit displays. We were given a private
donated one of his pipe fragments to the Rotchev House inside-the-roped-area tour of the museum (including the
restoration. It is almost exactly like one of the pipes dug famous amber room) on a day when the museum is closed
up in Sitka. It is currently being restored so that a mold to the public!
can be made and copies can be produced for Rotchev’s
study . . .
Friday May 8 — We flew to St Petersburg and moved
into an apartment at Millionnaya 19 in the historic city
center . . .
Monday May 11 — . . . Rotchev House and research
advisor James Gibson arrived from Canada to meet us to
work on Fort Ross projects. He and project interpreter,
Natalia Gubina, met us at our apartment for high tea to
confer and plan the itinerary for the next week.
Tuesday May 12 — Throughout this week interpreter
Natalia Gubina accompanied us (and drove!) to project
meetings. She was invaluable in confirming appointments,
and helped us fit as much as possible into our days.
This day we met with Andrey Lyalin, Acting Director
of the Central Naval Museum. He is an energetic, very Sarjan Holt, John Middleton, and Natalia Gubina at Tsarskoye Selo .
6
Wednesday May 13 — We had our second appointment
at the Central Naval Museum . . .
We then drove to the American Consulate for afternoon
tea with Acting Consul General Allen Greenberg . . .
Thursday May 14 — We visited the new building of
the Russian State Naval Archives where we met Ludmila
Spiridonova. She introduced us to the new director Sergey
Chernyavsky. We then went to the research area to look at
documents and ship plans that we had ordered. Ludmila
promised to have all the documents copied and the ship
plans photographed by Wednesday May 20.
Friday May 15 — In the morning we were given a tour of
Kunstkamera by Elena Soboleva. We visited the California
Voznesenskii collection and had a private tour of the
Lomonosov collection and the observatory.
We visited Pushkin Flat (last home of Pushkin) and met
with the restoration department. We left plans with
restorer Nikolai so that he could give us a bid . . .
Meeting at the Astoria: Sarjan, Jim, Natalia, John and Lyn
Saturday May 16 — We returned to Pushkin Flat for a
private tour - behind the ropes again! Alexander Rotchev
was Pushkin’s contemporary, and the Pushkin Flat Museum
contains exhibits very similar to those being prepared for
the Rotchev House. We took lots of pictures of details
including door handles and a tile stove remarkably similiar
to the Rotchev House faux stove to be constructed.
We found the upholstery shop (Etoff) on Vasilevksi Island
that was recommended by Iraida Bott. We noted prices
and took pictures of the fabrics, which were very expensive
and all imported from Europe . . .
Monday May 18 — We move to our second apartment
at Nevski 16, then begin gathering bids from Pushkin Flat,
Tsarskoye Selo, and Central Naval Museum restorers as
well as the Turkish contacts.
Tuesday May 19 — Igor Mushtukov (the master furniture
builder recommended by Elena Klimkova) met with us at
our new apartment. We discussed the furnishing plans,
and he promised a bid before Friday . . .
Friday May 22 — . . . Returned to İstanbul and the Spectra
Hotel.
Saturday May 23 — We shopped for exhibit objects
previously identified − ten candle sconces from Hor Hor
antique lamp shop which we had had specially made,
and rugs, curtain and upholstery fabric from the covered
bazaar. We stayed up most of the night organizing
and comparing bids. Although we wanted to have at
least some of the exhibits produced in Russia, the first
firm we had visited in İstanbul offered far better prices
(which included shipping to Oakland!) So to further the
important connection between Russia and Fort Ross, it was
decided to have two Russian sources make the two most
important showcase exhibits − Nikanor would make the
settee to accompany the bookcase he is replicating for the
Central Naval Museum; Igor Mushtukov, recommended
by the project advisor architects, would make the parlor
set. The rest of the exhibits would be made by the very
professional Turkish company, MOB. We wanted all the
talented restorers and cabinet makers who had supplied
bids to be involved, but sadly many bids were too high
for our budget. Everyone who had given bids in Turkey
and Russia told us that they believed this project was an
important and positive international connection. We wish
we could have worked with all! . . .
Monday May 25 — Met with MOB and signed a contract
with them to make many of the exhibits. While the staff
was signing contracts across the Bosphorus, the research
advisor was inspecting and accepting delivery of the wall
sconces, and searching İMÇ for exact fabric matches to
those seen in Russia. In the afternoon we all visited İMÇ
again and purchased the fabric for various exhibits . . .~
Collecting Bids and
Signing Contracts:
Left: Vadim and Nikonor
with Dina translating at
the Central Naval Museum
Restoration Department.
Below: Fatma and Mengü
with Sarjan at MOB in
Îstanbul.
7
 Membership Application

NAME ______________________________________________ PHONE ___________________

ADDRESS_________________________________ CITY _____________________ STATE ___________ ZIP_____________

_____ $15.00 Senior/Student _____ $20.00 Regular _____$25.00 Family _____$30.00 Organization $_____Donation

(These new membership fees effective at the end of July.)

Fria board meetings are scheduled for the second Saturday of every other month.
The next regularly scheduled meeting is Saturday August 8 at 10:30 AM
FRIA website: www.fortrossinterpretive.org
Fort Ross State Park web site: www.fortrossstatepark.org

Mission Statement
The mission of the Fort Ross Interpretive Association, Incorporated, Fort Ross Interpretive Association
is to promote for the benefit of the public the interpretive and 19005 Coast Highway One Non-Profit Org.
educational activities of the Russian River Sector of California State Jenner, CA 95450 U.S. Postage
Parks at Fort Ross State Historic Park and Salt Point State Park. Phone: (707) 847-3437 PAID
To enhance and conserve the cultural and natural historic, Fax: (707) 847-3601 Permit No. 1
interpretive and educational resources of Fort Ross and E-mail: fria@mcn.org Jenner, 95450
Salt Point State Parks.
To sponsor, publish, distribute, and sell appropriate items ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED
which increase visitor understanding and appreciation of
this area.
To acquire materials and equipment to assist in the educational
and interpretive programs at Fort Ross and Salt Point
State Parks.
To develop and maintain a library.
To preserve and archive historical material associated with
Fort Ross and Salt Point State Parks, and to provide and
maintain adequate and secure storage facilities.
To sponsor, support, and assist scientific research and
investigations relating to Fort Ross and Salt Point State
Parks, and presentation of these studies to the public.
To promote interpretation that reflects current research.
To plan, organize, and implement fund raising programs to
support interpretive and educational activities at Fort Ross
and Salt Point.
Board of Directors:
Officers: Sarah Sweedler, President; Carolyn Coryelle, Vice
President; Susan Rudy, Recording Secretary; Glenn Farris,
Corresponding Secretary; Jim Allan, Treasurer; Directors: Ludmila
Ershov; Konstantin Kudryavtsev; Marion MacDonald; Tom Wright.
Director Emeritus: John Sperry.
Staff: Lyn Kalani—Executive Director; Sarjan Holt—Administrator;
Lake Perry—Administrative Assistant; Susanna Barlow—
Membership Secretary.