Mike Bialy operates a hotdog stand on Fourth Avenue in Anchorage, just two miles from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, where President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin plan to meet.
“I just hope everything goes smoothly, because I know a lot of the United States is kind of tense right now,” Bialy said, between customers. “And a lot of European countries, especially Ukraine, is really tense right now.”
Alaska has a long relationship with Russia, its across-the-strait neighbor. Alaska was once a Russian colony, served as a defensive bulwark for North America during the Cold War, and saw a period of warmer relations after the Soviet Union fell that has since cooled again.
While the Ukraine war is the main subject of the presidential meeting, many Alaskans wonder whether Putin will express Russia’s long-simmering sellers’ regret while he’s here. Czar Alexander II sold Alaska to the U.S. in 1867 for pennies an acre. The notion that Alaska should belong to Moscow is a theme among Russian patriots today. The Kremlin has not seriously proposed taking Alaska back, but some Alaskans are bracing for Putin to raise the issue, maybe as a joke, or to say that borders can be fluid to try to legitimize his seizure of Ukrainian territory.
Still, Lewis Baker thinks the meeting could be a boon for Anchorage.
It “puts us in the spotlight for a little bit,” he said, walking his brown retriever, L.E., down Fourth Avenue. “And if something good comes of it — which hopefully there will be — people would remember that.”
Anchorage, Baker said, might become a name associated with a peace deal or treaty, making Alaskans proud.
“It could be the new Versailles,” he said.
(Baker may be the first person to associate Anchorage, founded as a tent city in 1915, to the opulent French palace built in the 1600s where the Treaty of Versailles was signed.)
After the Ice Curtain of the Cold War melted, Alaskans could go to Russia and get to know their Russian neighbors. Civic and cultural organizations were established. Rick Mystrom was the mayor of Anchorage in the 1990s and traveled to Anchorage’s Russian sister city, Magadan. During a particularly tough winter, Mystrom helped organize coat drives for the community.
“We ended up sending three airplanes full of clothes and food to Magadan that year,” Mystrom recalled.
He said he still feels the spirit of those times.
“But my continued good feelings about the people of Russia doesn't extend to Vladimir Putin,” he said.
Mystrom calls Putin a killer, citing the suspicious deaths of Kremlin opponents and critics, as well as the war on Ukraine.
“If I were mayor, I think I would have a hard time to give him a warm welcome to Anchorage,” Mystrom said. “I would be polite, but probably cold.”
Some in Anchorage plan to protest. Karen Colonell bought a dozen Ukrainian flags for the occasion and hopes Alaskans will show the world they stand against Russian aggression.
“We have some values that we need to uphold, and freedom is one of them,” she said.
Bill Gallanger questions the wisdom of waving the Ukrainian flag in Putin’s face. Gallanger grew up during hotter phases of the Cold War. He recalls doing duck-and-cover exercises in school.
“I don't know why you'd want to be antagonistic to a leader of a nuclear country,” he said. “Seems like the normal thing is to be welcoming of a world leader that's willing to come to America to discuss negotiations of great proportion, keeping us out of World War III.”
The White House has tamped down expectations for this meeting, calling it a “listening exercise.” And those who protest will have to do it from afar, since they won’t be allowed on the military base.
