Аннотация

The article is devoted to spreading of the alcoholism among the population of Russian colonies in America (Alaska before 1867). The study of archival materials and published historical and ethnographic sources shows that alcohol played relatively insignificant role in contacts between the Russians and Alaskan Natives but among the Russians and Creoles (Metisos) themselves the alcoholism was one of main social problem. The Russian-American Company (who ruled of Alaska since 1799) tried to fight alcoholism as a whole and limited access of spirits to the natives of the Russian colonies and its own emploees partially for moral and partially for economic reasons.