Atlantico.fr<\/a>.<\/p>\n“After the war, the American president Andrew Jackson appointed him US Consul General in Saint Petersburg, Russia. His mission was to maintain good relations with the Tsar. In 1867, Russia wanted to sell Alaska because it feared it would lose it anyway to the English, without receiving anything in return,” the Consulate said in the post.<\/p>\n
Despite US skepticism about the largely barren strip of land, George Pomu\u021b led the secret negotiations. The Romanian, who spoke 8 foreign languages, convinced Russia to sell a territory of 1.7 million km\u00b2 (7 times the size of Romania) for USD 7.2 million, about 2 cents per acre. Adjusted for inflation, that would be USD 113-160 million today, the same source said.<\/p>\n
The sale of Alaska was signed on March 30, 1867, and became the best investment in US history. Shortly after, gold and oil were discovered in the frozen lands. Today, the value of the resources extracted from Alaska exceeds hundreds of billions of dollars annually.<\/p>\n\n
George Pomu\u021b remained in Russia after completing his mandate, being highly respected there. He died in 1882, in Saint Petersburg, poor, after donating much of his fortune, and was buried in the Smolensk cemetery.<\/p>\n
In 1944, at the height of World War II, Romanian Americans launched a public fundraising campaign to finance a US Navy ship. The government accepted the donation. The Liberty Ship SS George Pomu\u021b set sail, weathered the fighting, and remained in service until 1970.<\/p>\n
To mark George Pomu\u021b and his deeds, the Romanian Scottish Rite presented the United States Congress with an exceptional portrait of George Pomu\u021b, displayed in a 19th-century Florentine frame.<\/p>\n
radu@romania-insider.com<\/p>\n
(Photo source: Facebook\/Consulate General of Romania in New York<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Romanian Consulate in New York shared on social media the story of George Pomu\u021b (George Pomutz, born Gheorghe Pomu\u021b), the Romanian-American who facilitated the sale of Alaska to the US. Despite his role in US history, the Romanian is largely unknown today, the Consulate noted. Pomu\u021b was born in the Hungarian town of Gyula, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}