WINDMILL'S NEW BREATH OF LIFE RUSSIAN EXPERT COMMISSIONED TO MAKE BLUEPRINTS, MODEL FOR USE IN EVENTUAL CONSTRUCTION

Published on July 28, 2001
© 2001- The Press Democrat

 BOB NORBERG - You can reach Staff Writer Bob Norberg at 521-5206 or e-mail bnorberg@pressdemocrat.com.

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A Russian historical architect has been commissioned to produce blueprints and a scale model of the lost Fort Ross windmill, which one day may be rebuilt to take its rightful place on the Sonoma Coast. Built in 1814, the windmill may have been one of the most significant structures at the Russian outpost, its 38-foot vanes turning in the northwest wind. It was the first windmill in California, using wind power to grind grain -- harvested by American Indians -- into bread for the Russians. ``It represents so much,'' said Glenn Farris, chief archaeologist for California state parks. ``In its own way, it would be so curious and so different and so active.'' It also signifies what Fort Ross really was -- a Russian settlement for hunting, agriculture and trade. ``The purpose of Fort Ross was not as a fort, but as a place in Russian America where they could produce goods for sale, by raising meat, growing vegetables, fishing, hunting for fur,'' said Igor Medvedev of Moscow, the reproduction windmill's architect. ``The primary reason for the fence around was to protect themselves from the native Indians. But even so, that turned out not to be necessary.''

A historical architect for 30 years, Medvedev is being paid $8,000 by the state parks department to draw up blueprints and build a 3-foot scale model, which will be on display at the fort beginning in December. The fort is an important part of Russian history and well known in Russia, Medvedev said through an interpreter on Thursday. The fort is ``a historical treasure not only for Americans but for Russians too,'' Medvedev said. ``They must see this and know about it. It is very important that the young should know. This is where they had the first contact with the Spaniards in California at the time when the English were not here.'' Medvedev, who visited the fort two weeks ago, first traveled to the outpost in 1994.``There is amazing scenery and it just makes an amazing impression on someone from Russia to come here,'' he said. ``It is always the experience of Fort Ross that truly brings wonderment and amazement to Russians, and not to just me, but other Russians I have talked to. They are always touched profoundly.''

The windmill would be the first structure built by the state parks department outside the fort's stockade walls, helping to correct the misleading impression that it was more fort than colony, Farris said. Actually, the Russians only had nine buildings within the walls. There were 59 buildings outside the walls, including a Russian village of 24 homes, a tannery, a ship-building facility and a forge. From 1812 to 1841, the Russians occupied Fort Ross, a bustling settlement of 300 to 400 Russians, Alaskan natives and North Coast Indians. Initially an outpost to hunt sea otter, it was Russia's farthest inroad into North America and eventually became a colony for trade and to grow food for the Russian settlements in Alaska.

The Russians called it Selenie Rossiia, ``Settlement Russia,'' with Ross being the shortened version of ``Rossiia,'' the Russia of those days. The Russians also at times referred to it as Krepost Rossiia, which indicated a fortified settlement, but not necessarily a military fort. It also was named Fuerte Russo, ``Fort Ross,'' by the Spaniards, who established an outpost in the Presidio in San Francisco in 1776, said Dan Murley, an archaeologist and Fort Ross park ranger who has been hunting for the windmill site. ``The windmill would give more of the flavor of what the colony was really like,'' Murley said. ``Rather than thinking of stockade walls and cannons, it was a settlement where they were living, rather than defending.'' Medvedev used an 1842 color rendering of the fort by nature artist Il'ya Voznesenskii to determine the style of the windmill, similar to one still standing in northern Russia, a simple wood structure that dates from the 19th century. Thirty-two feet high with 38-foot vanes, it was a ``post mill,'' with a central post running down the center into the ground and the top story swiveling so the vanes could face into the wind. Farris said a state parks architect is using Medvedev's blueprints to come up with an idea of how it could be constructed and how much it might cost. The hope is to use state money and private donations to build the structure within the next two years in its original location, between the fort and Highway 1.

``Our concern in trying to reconstruct a lot of these old buildings is how accurate they are,'' Farris said. ``If we are lucky, we have an old drawing or we have some verbal descriptions. Here we have a person who is renowned in Russia as one of the top people. This is an opportunity to do the building right, with the best information possible.''