Russia thought Alaska wasn't worth much, and sold it when it was in a middle of a war and needed some extra cash for the state.

Little did they know that 1) Oil would become one of the worlds most valuable natural assets, and 2) Alaska is full of oil.

As a result, there are a fair number of Russian orthodox people in Alaska, and some native people there have Russian names.

I read a fascinating article about a tribe of Alaska native people (eskimos) who had lived on two islands in the Bering Strait. The ones on the larger island remained Russian and those on the smaller island became Americans, even though they were all related to each other.. During the cold war, they lost all contact - the Russian eskimos became staunch believers in the ideology of the USSR and tried to convince their American relatives to join them on their island, but the American eskimos declined. Some interesting incidents happened where the eskimos met up in secret despite the cold war, but they also spied on each other and reported back to their respective countries! After the cold war they took up contact again, but only the older ones were able to communicate freely in their native language. The younger generations had become mainly Russian/English speakers. The American eskimos had also become born-again protestants, while the Russians were still orthodox but not religious.