Nikolai Rezanov

Who was Nikolai Rezanov?

Nikolay Petrovich Rezanov was a Russian nobleman and statesman who promoted the project of Russian colonization of Alaska and California. Aleksander I commissioned him as Russian ambassador to Japan to conclude a commercial treaty. In order to get there he was appointed co-commander of the First Russian circumnavigation, led by Adam Johann von Krusenstern. Rezanov departed the expedition when it reached Kamchatka after visiting Japan where he was unsuccessful in his ambassadorial mission. He was also the author of a lexicon of the Japanese language and of several other works, which are preserved in the library of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, of which he was a member. But Rezanov's monument for many years after his death was the great Russian American Company.