The recent incident where two Russians mysteriously appeared on St. Lawrence Island just 63 miles from the Russian mainland harkens back three decades to another Russians-gone-awry incident in the Bering Strait. U.S. authorities say the most recent pair hope to evade Vladimir Putin’s military call-up for more soldiers to throw at his invasion of Ukraine.
Thirty-three years earlier, two sophisticated Muscovites schemed for months to make their way to the tiny Alaska village of Little Diomede. There they pronounced themselves weary of the dysfunctional Soviet system and requested asylum. Their ingenious but high-risk plan threatened to refreeze the Cold War “Ice Curtain” between Alaska and the USSR.
In April 1989, the two privileged twenty-somethings disguised themselves as journalists covering a historic ski and dog sled expedition from the Russian mainland across the Strait to Kotzebue. They falsified documents and lied their way to the frozen International Dateline between Alaska Little Diomede and Russian Big Diomede islands.
Instead of witnessing the historic crossing, they quietly pulled aside an Alaska National Guardsman dispatched to help manage the festivities and asked to remain in the U.S. — permanently.
Garnering the support of Gov. Steve Cowper and federal authorities, the two were whisked to Anchorage and treated to a pizza dinner at the home of an Immigration and Naturalization officer. Two months later in an Anchorage Daily News column, Anatoly Tkachenko, the scheme’s leader, described riding a bicycle through local neighborhoods where he was struck by the American flags waving from front porches.”
Speaking with the local people, you could hardly miss their feeling of pride for their country that gave them opportunities for advancing in anything they wish,” he wrote.
Shortly thereafter, the two left Alaska and, to my knowledge, departed the public spotlight for good.
— David Ramseur
Anchorage
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